By Anne Enright Shepherd
June 15, 2001
Patients with advanced cancer of the nasal passages who receive a combination of chemotherapy and a cutting-edge radiation technique called intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) live longer than patients who receive conventional radiation, according to a new study by researchers at the School of Medicine.
"We found that cancer patients who were treated here with chemotherapy and IMRT were better off than the national standard," said K.S. Clifford Chao, M.D., assistant professor of radiology.
Chao and his colleagues presented their results in May at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in San Francisco.
The researchers studied 125 patients with tumors of the nasopharynx, or nasal passages. The patients were treated at the University's Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR) between 1971 and 1999. One hundred and three received conventional radiation therapy alone. Twenty-two patients received radiation with chemotherapy. Of the latter, 13 received conventional radiation and nine were treated with the newer IMRT technique.