Table 1.
Distribution and characteristics of 2,629 patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
Table 2.
Classification criteria of TNM 6th and TNM 7th staging system for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
Figure 1.
Survival analyses of T categories using the TNM 6th and the TNM 7th editions staging systems.
Panels A, B, and C were staged according to the TNM 6th edition, while panels A′, B′, and C′ were staged using the TNM 7th edition. In OS analysis, there were significant differences for each stage of T categories except for T1 vs. T2 in the TNM 6th edition (Panel 1A), which became significant in the TNM 7th edition (Panel 1A′). With regard to LRRFS, no significant differences were observed for each stage of T2-T4 subsets in both editions (Panels 1B and1B′). With regard to DMFS, both TNM 6th and TNM 7th editions showed distinct differences in survival among each stages of T categories except for T2 vs. T3 and T3 vs. T4 (Panels 1C and 1C′). UICC/AJCC: International Union Against Cancer stage system/American Joint Committee on Cancer; OS, overall survival; DMFS, distant metastasis-free survival; LRRFS, loco-regional recurrence-free survival.
Figure 2.
Survival analyses of the HRs of the T2a subset compared with other subsets using the TNM 6th edition staging system.
Panels A, B, and C were staged according to the TNM 6th edition staging system, while panels A′, B′, and C′ were plotted as estimated from the Cox multivariate model with adjustments for sex, age, histology, treatment modality, and radiotherapy techniques. In both statistical model, the hazard ratios (HRs) of T2a were similar to T1 in OS (Panels A and A′), LRRFS (Panels 2B and 2B′) and DMFS (Panels C and C′) but were significantly different from the T2b subset (parapharyngeal space invasion). HR: hazard ratio.
Figure 3.
Survival analyses of N categories using the TNM 6th and the TNM 7th editions staging systems.
Panels A, B, and C were staged according to the TNM 6th edition staging system, while panels A′, B′, and C′ were followed according to the TNM 7th edition. There were significant differences among each stage of N categories except for N1 vs. N2 in either OS or DMFS (Panels 3A and 3C) in the TNM 6th edition, while such differences became significant in the TNM 7th edition (Panels 3A′ and 3C′). However, neither the TNM 6th nor TNM 7th edition could distinguish the LRFFS between N1 and N2 (Panels 3B and 3B′).
Figure 4.
Survival analyses of the HRs of N0RLN+ subset comparing with other subsets using the TNM 6th staging system.
Panels A, B, and C were staged as the TNM 6th edition staging system, while panels A′, B′, and C′ were plotted as estimated from the Cox multivariate model with adjustments for sex, age, histology, treatment modality, and radiotherapy techniques. Patients with N0RLN+ were divided into a subgroup alone, the HRs of N0RLN+ was similar to N0RLN- in OS (Panels A and A′), LRRFS (Panels B and B′) and DMFS (Panels C and C′).
Figure 5.
Survival analyses of overall stage using the TNM 6th and the TNM 7th staging systems.
Panels A, B, and C were staged with the TNM 6th edition staging system, while panels A′, B′, and C′ followed the TNM 7th edition. Both 6th and 7th editions could distinctly separate the survival curves of each overall stage in OS and DMFS (Panels 5A and 5A′, 5C and 5C′). With regard to LRRFS, no significant differences were noted among each overall stage except that stage I showed significantly better survival than stage II and stage IV (Panels 5B and 5B′).
Table 3.
Multivariate analysis of independent prognostic factors in NPC patients.