Systemic approach to improving treatment outcome in nasopharyngeal carcinoma: Current and future directions

Systemic therapy is an integral part of the management of non-keratinizing nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The purposes of this review are to provide the latest results and future directions of clinical and translational research for this disease, and to illustrate how some of these new therapies have improved the treatment outcome for patients with NPC. Particular attention will be paid to the clinical application of chemotherapy in the adjunctive treatment of locoregionally advanced NPC, novel targeted drugs, Epstein-Barr virus-targeted vaccine therapies, and the use of plasma Epstein-Barr virus DNA as a biomarker for selecting patients for adjunctive therapies.