Serum C-Reactive Protein Predicts Poor Prognosis in Patients with Locoregionally Advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Treated with Chemoradiotherapy

Background: We aimed to evaluate the association of serum C-reactive protein (crp) with prognosis in patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma treated with chemoradiotherapy. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 79 patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (cT3–4N0–3M0) treated with chemoradiotherapy. Chemoradiotherapy consisted of external-beam radiotherapy to the nasopharynx (70–80 Gy), the lymph node–positive area (60–70 Gy), and the lymph node–negative area (50–60 Gy) combined with 3 cycles of various platinum-based regimens delivered at 3-week intervals. Elevated crp was defined as more than 8 mg/L. The survival rate was calculated using the Kaplan–Meier method, and univariate and multivariate analyses (Cox proportional hazards model) were used to identify factors significantly associated with prognosis. Results: During the median follow-up of 3.9 years (range: 1–5.5 years), 23 patients died from nasopharyngeal cancer. The 5-year cancer-specific survival (css) rate was 62.90%. Before chemoradiotherapy, 18 patients had high serum crp; the css rate in that subgroup was significantly worse than the rate in the remaining patients (p = 0.0002). Multivariate analysis showed that crp was an independent prognostic indicator of css, with a hazard ratio of 3.04 (95% confidence interval: 1.22 to 7.55; p = 0.017). Among the 18 patients with elevated serum crp, 9 achieved normal serum crp after chemoradiotherapy, of whom 5 remained living with no evidence of recurrence or metastasis during follow-up. By contrast, the remaining 9 patients in whom serum crp did not normalize after chemoradiotherapy died within 4.2 years. Conclusions: Elevated serum crp before treatment predicts poor prognosis in patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma treated with chemoradiotherapy.