Minimum absolute lymphocyte count during radiotherapy as a new prognostic factor for nasopharyngeal cancer.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the minimum absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) during radiotherapy (RT) could predict clinical outcome in patients with nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC). We analyzed 70 patients with NPC including 63 patients treated with chemoradiotherapy and used multivariate analysis to determine whether minimum ALC affected clinical outcome. Patients were grouped by minimum ALC, with a cutoff of 245 cells/μL. Five-year disease-specific survival (DSS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for patients with minimum ALC ≥245 versus minimum ALC <245 were 88.1% versus 60.8% (p = .004) and 71.2% versus 35.2% (p = .004). All 10 patients with minimum ALC <120 experienced disease progression. Four of 6 patients (67%) with ALC <120 who died experienced disease progression within 6 months. Minimum ALC may predict poor 5-year DSS and should be evaluated by prospective studies. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 38: E1061-E1067, 2016.