Researchers examined adjuvant therapy with either gemcitabine plus cisplatin or fluorouracil plus cisplatin following concurrent chemoradiation in a clinical study of 240 patients with locally advanced nasopharyngeal cancer. Following chemoradiation, both therapies had similar response rates, with over 90% of patients attaining a full response. However, compared to fluorouracil plus cisplatin, adjuvant gemcitabine with cisplatin significantly increased progression-free survival, with 83.9% versus 71.5% of patients staying progression-free at 3 years. Gemcitabine with cisplatin was also found to be beneficial in terms of lowering distant metastases and locoregional recurrence. While overall survival was similar at this time, gemcitabine with cisplatin caused more hematologic toxicities such as leukopenia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia. According to the researchers, adjuvant gemcitabine with cisplatin may be a more successful therapy for these high-risk individuals.

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