The relationship between tumor regression degree and its hypoxia degree in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Objectives To investigate the relationship between nasopharyngeal carcinoma hypoxia degree evaluated by imaging of the marker(99m)technetium-labeled 4, 9-diaza-3, 3, 10, 10-tetramethyldodecan-2, 11-dione dioxime(^99mTc-HL91) and tumor regression in medium-term radiotherapy. Methods 34 patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma staging from Ⅱ-IVa underwent ^99mTc-HL91 SPECT imaging, integrated CT scan and its image fusion one week before receiving radical and continuous radiotherapy. Tumor/muscle, tumor/cerebra of the nasopharyngeal carcinoma and lymph node/muscle, lymph node/cerebra of the neck lymph node metastases were calculated, and lesion regression degree was measured in medium-term radiotherapy. Results ① The diameter of nasopharyngeal carcinoma with positive hypoxia imaging was(1.70±0.68)cm. There was a positive relationship with tumor/muscle and tumor/cerebra(r was 0.607 and 0.640, P was 0.001 and 0.000). ②There was significant difference between tumor/muscle and tumor/cerebra(P was 0.004 and 0.001) of nasopharyngeal carcinoma with grade I and grade ID regression. The regression degree of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in medium-term radiotherapy was negative correlated to the hypoxic degree(tumor/muscle:r=-0.602; tumor/cerebra:r=-0.643, P<0.01), ③^99mTc-HL91 imaging detected 28 neck metastasis lymph, nodes. There was no significant line trend between lymph node/muscle, lymph node/cerebra of Lymph node metastases and its size, lesion regression degree in medium-term radiotherapy. Conclusions The Larger the nasopharyngeal carcinoma, the higher the hypoxia degree of lesion, and the less regression in medium-term radiotherapy. There was no significant relationship between hypoxia of neck lymph node metastases and its size and medium-term regression.