Abstract

BACKGROUND: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is a squamous cell malignancy derived from the nasopharyngeal epithelial layer. This study aimed to calculate the IL-6 levels in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma before and after radiotherapy, in the week I and week 3 during the radiotherapy, and 2 weeks after the radiotherapy.

METHODS: The study was conducted in a prospective cohort on 16 people suffering from nasopharyngeal carcinoma and undergoing radiotherapy, i.e. 9 patients were in stage I of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and 7 people were in stage II of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Each sample underwent the examination of IL-6 before the week I and week 3 during the radiotherapy, and 2 weeks after the radio¬therapy.

RESULTS: The more they received the treatment with radiotherapy the greater was the decrease of serum IL-6. The percentages of the decrease of the levels of serum IL-6 was greater in those receiving the 3-week duration of radiotherapy (24.59%) compared to those who just received 1-week duration of radiotherapy (6.44%). The decrease of serum IL-6 would continue, although radio-therapy had ended; 2 weeks after the radio-therapy, the percentage of serum IL-6 decreased to 42.43% from the level of serum IL-6 before the radio-therapy.

CONCLUSIONS: The research results indicated that there happened a significant decrease of serum IL-6 (p<0.05) after the treatment with the radio-therapy

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