Table 4 The REMARK profile
(a) Patients, treatment and variables | |||
Study and marker | Remarks | ||
Prognostic factor | M = the interval between IC and RT (days from the end of the last cycle of IC to the initiation of RT); categorized into 5 groups (≤ 10, 11–20, 21–30, 31–40 and ≥ 41), or 2 groups (≤ 30 and > 30) | ||
Further variables | v1 = age, v2 = gender, v3 = CCI score, v4 = T category, v5 = N category, v6 = lnDNA, v7 = WHO pathology type, v8 = IC cycles, v9 = concurrent chemotherapy | ||
Patients | Number | Remarks | |
Assessed for eligibility | 2191 | Disease: newly diagnosed, biopsy-proven, non-metastatic NPC Patient source: 2009.11–2012.10, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center | |
Excluded | 1523 | Exclusion criteria: not receiving IC before RT; without pretreatment plasma EBV DNA | |
Included | 668 | Treatment: all received IC and IMRT with or without concurrent chemotherapy | |
Primary outcome events | |||
OS | 108 | OS: from the initiation of therapy to death from any cause | |
Secondary outcomes events | |||
DFS | 158 | DFS: from the initiation of therapy to failure or death from any cause, whichever occurred first | |
DMFS | 89 | DMFS: from the initiation of therapy to first distant failure | |
LRFS | 70 | LRFS: from the initiation of therapy to first locoregional failure | |
(b) Statistical analyses of survival outcomes | |||
Analysis | Variables considered | Results/remarks | |
A1: Univariate for OS | M | Fig. 1; the interval was categorized into 5 groups | |
A2: Univariate for OS, DFS, DMFS, LRFS | M, v1-v9 | ||
A3: Multivariate for OS, DFS, DMFS, LRFS | M, v1-v9 | Table 3; variables in final model: OS (M, v1, v3, v4, v5, v6), DFS (M, v1, v3, v5, v6), DMFS (M, v3, v5, v6), LRFS (M, v5, v6, v7) | |
A4: Interval in v5 subgroups for OS, DFS, DMFS | M, v5 | Additional file 1: Figures S3 and S6 | |
A5: Interval in v8 subgroups for OS, DFS, DMFS | M, v8 | Additional file 1: Figures S4 and S6 | |
A6: Interval in v9 subgroups for OS, DFS, DMFS | M, v9 | Additional file 1: Figures S5 and S6 | |