Prospective Comparisons of Clinical Trial and Real-world Outcomes in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

Study results from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) usually have been found not adequately inform practice. A RCT is optimized to determine efficacy, while real-world study is conducted in a routine care setting aimed to determine effectiveness. Thus, it is necessary to evaluate the pragmatism of clinical trials for a better understanding of the external generalizability. Nonetheless, comparative pragmatic features of RCTs and real-world studies still lack well elucidation. By capitalizing on a nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC)-specific big-data, real-world database and individual patient data extracted from three landmark RCTs, investigators conducted the direct comparison of NPC cohorts receiving same treatment strategy in clinical trial versus real-world settings, and examined the comparative pragmatic features and their influences on survival outcomes, safety profile, and the probability of returning to society.

Sex

All

Minimum age

8 Years

Maximum age

79 Years

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Patients treated in our center from April 2009 to December 2016;
2. All patients were pathologically diagnosed, non-metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma;
3. Only included cases staged as T3-4N1 \& T1-4N2-3 according to the 6th or 7th edition American Joint Committee on Cancer / Union for International Cancer Control (AJCC/UICC) system;
4. For trial patients, treatment strategies only limited to concurrent chemoradiotherapy, induction chemotherapy combined with concurrent chemoradiotherapy, or concurrent chemoradiotherapy combined with adjuvant chemotherapy;
5. For patients from real-world database, patients are permitted to receive additional targeted therapy to standard chemoradiotherapy, as far as it met clinical needs and was approved by physicians.
6. The patient's basic information, prognosis related data, and follow-up data are complete.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. The clinical stage of T3-4N0 was excluded;
2. Cases from large real-world databases need to exclude patients who participate in clinical trials;

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