Alexander Rühle, Senior Physician and Executive Medical Officer at Leipzig University Hospital, shared on LinkedIn:
“We are excited to share our latest multicenter analysis on nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in a non-endemic population, based on the MERLIN study (DRKS00034782), a retrospective multicenter study initiated by Young DEGRO.
The study included 299 patients with NPC from 9 German centers treated with definitive radiotherapy between 2004 and 2023.
Key findings:
- 5-year overall survival: 71%
- 5-year disease-free survival: 61%
- 5-year locoregional failure incidence: 18%
- 5-year distant failure incidence: 14%
Importantly, most local (30/40), regional (15/19), and distant (38/41) recurrences occurred within the first 3 years after treatment, highlighting this period as particularly important for surveillance and imaging-based follow-up, especially regarding distant metastases. However, one quarter of local failures occurred beyond 3 years.
Multivariable analysis identified older age, lower Karnofsky performance status, and stage IVa disease as independent factors associated with worse disease-free survival.
These results provide important real-world insights into outcomes and recurrence patterns of NPC in a German, non-endemic setting and highlight the need for further research into the potential role of induction and adjuvant systemic therapy.
A big thank you to all participating centers and colleagues who made this collaborative work possible!
Special thanks to Justus Kaufmann for initiating and leading this project.
Congratulations also to Isabel Krabbes from Clinic and Polyclinic for Radiation Therapy, Leipzig, who contributed to this work as a medical student and is now a co-first author of the publication!”
Title: Survival and patterns of recurrence in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma from a non-endemic region – A German multicenter
analysis
Authors: Justus Kaufmann, Isabel Krabbes, Eirini Nikolaidou, Nwabata Oji, Simone Ferdinandus, Julian Hlouschek, Georg Wurschi, Jan-Niklas Becker, Jana Schaule, Jörg-Andreas Müller, Laura Oebel, Felix Ehret, Christian Grad
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