Selection of optimal therapeutic modality for early-stage extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma patients under the guidance of single-nucleotide polymorphism signature.

The therapeutic modalities of early-stage and advanced extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma (NKTCL) patients are completely different. The former is mainly radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy, while the latter relies on chemotherapy-based systemic treatment.1,2 According to Ann Arbor staging system, approximately 70% of the NKTCL patients are classified as early-stage cases who are promising to be cured.3 Considering NKTCL is sensitive to radiation but may be resistant to chemotherapy, the radiotherapy is considered to be the most important treatment for some early-stage patients with a satisfactory local control rate and could be used alone.4 However, systemic recurrence after radiotherapy in a portion of NKTCL patients seriously affects their long-term survival, and the first-line treatment combined with radiotherapy and chemotherapy is considered necessary. Therefore, the use of radiotherapy alone in early-stage NKTCL is still a controversial issue.5,6 Read more in PDF.