What are the indications of radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma?

  Nasopharyngeal cancer is the most common disease in radiotherapy department. The indications for radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal cancer are very broad, and there are two main types, radical radiotherapy and palliative radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal cancer patients, as follows: 1. Radical radiotherapy: for mid-stage or early to middle stage nasopharyngeal cancer, radiotherapy in order to seek the purpose of curing the disease, so for such patients, radical radiotherapy must be done for the primary lesions of nasopharyngeal cancer and metastatic lesions in the neck For advanced nasopharyngeal cancer that has metastasized to organs, nasopharynx and neck are still the parts with the largest number of nasopharyngeal cancer cells, so these parts should also be treated with palliative radiotherapy, which is of great significance to control the disease, prolong life span and slow down disease development. In addition, distant organ metastases, such as nasopharyngeal cancer bone metastases, nasopharyngeal cancer lung metastases, nasopharyngeal cancer liver metastases, these metastatic lesions also need radiotherapy, which is also called palliative radiotherapy. Some patients with bone metastases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma have pain, so radiotherapy can reduce the pain and slow down the progression of the disease to other parts of the body, and lung and liver metastases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma can be treated with palliative radiotherapy. There are also recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma, which can also be treated with secondary radiotherapy, which is not curative but mainly palliative treatment.