Comparison of first-line treatments for recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma based on phase 3 randomized clinical trials.

Abstract

e18012 Background: Guidelines recommend platinum-based chemotherapy as first-line treatment for recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (R/M NPC) patients. There are a variety of available combination treatment options, however, there is lack of research evaluating their advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, this study aims to compare the efficacy and adverse events (AEs) of the first-line treatment for R/M NPC. Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were systematically searched for phase 3 randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in which two first-line treatments for R/M NPC were compared. Among the included trials, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were calculated using the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% Bayesian confidence interval (95% CrI), while the odds ratio (OR) and 95% CrI were used to evaluate the incidence of severe AEs. The cumulative ranking plot and surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) were used to evaluate the rank probability of each regimen. Results: Three trials involving 4 total regimens were included. In terms of PFS, toripalimab plus gemcitabine plus cisplatin (GP) (HR: 0.28; 95% CrI: 0.081-0.98) and camrelizumab plus GP (HR: 0.28; 95% CrI: 0.079-0.96) were significantly superior to fluorouracil plus platinum (PF). In the rank analysis, camrelizumab plus GP was most likely to be the best regimen (SUCRA = 0.81), followed by toripalimab plus GP (SUCRA = 0.80). There was no significant difference among these treatments in terms of OS or AEs. Conclusions: This is the first network meta-analysis comparing the pros and cons of first-line regimens for R/M NPC based on phase 3 randomized clinical trials. Our research showed that toripalimab/camrelizumab plus GP was found to be the most effective treatment regimens for the first-line treatment for R/M NPC in terms of PFS.