Abstract
Due to the critical role of inflammation in nasopharyngeal carcinoma, we aim to investigate the correlation between nasopharyngeal carcinoma prognosis and the levels of tumor necrosis factor α and macrophages for the development of new prognostic models. The levels of tumor necrosis factor-α and CD68-positive macrophages were measured in 111 primary nasopharyngeal carcinoma specimens by immunohistochemistry. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that, compared with nonelevated tumor necrosis factor-α levels, elevated tumor necrosis factor α levels were correlated with poorer 10-year distant metastasis-free survival (24.5% vs 5.2%, P = .004) and bone metastasis-free survival (17.0% vs 0.0%, P = .001). Multivariate analysis revealed that tumor necrosis factor α level was an independent prognostic factor for distant metastasis-free survival (hazard ratio = 16.765, P = .001), while the level of CD68-positive macrophages was a favorable independent prognostic factor for cancer-specific survival (hazard ratio = 0.481, P = .023) and disease-free survival (hazard ratio = 0.403, P = .010). Additionally, several prognostic models that considered tumor-node-metastasis stage alone or in combination with tumor necrosis factor α and/or CD68-positive macrophage levels were compared by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Interestingly, the T_score model, which considered the tumor necrosis factor α level alone, could better predict the distant metastasis-free survival and bone metastasis-free survival, whereas the MT model, which considered the combination of T stage and CD68-positive macrophage level, could better predict the cancer-specific survival and disease-free survival of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Elevated tumor necrosis factor-α levels and decreased CD68-positive macrophage levels in primary nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues are unfavorable prognostic indicators in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The T_score model or the MT model could be better prognostic models than those currently available for nasopharyngeal carcinoma and could be used to select high-risk patients and aid in the design of individualized immunotherapy.