Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2005

Medi c a l N e w s New Treatment ■ N e w H o p e f or A d v a n c e d NPC Patients Targetting advanced nasopharynx cancer (NPC) patients, the Department of Clinical Oncology of the Faculty of Medicine has pioneered intensity- modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) to increase local control rate, and applied the novel approach of molecular targetting to the clinical setting. Conventional radiotherapy has a local control rate of around 60 per cent in NPC patients with locally advanced disease. For the past five years, the radiation oncology team at the Prince of Wales Hospital has developed the use of IMRT to improve local control in patients with advanced disease. The app lica tion o f the technique on the largest cohort of advanced NPC patients in Asia achieved a three-year local control rate of 88 per cent. The results are repo rted in the Decembe r issue o f the I n t e r na t i ona l J our nal o f Radi a t i on On c o l og y , B i o l o g y a n d Physi cs by Dr. M ichael Kam, honorary clin ica l assistant professor of the Department of Clinical Oncology, who spear headed the development of IMRT. Similarly Prof. Anthony Chan, director of the Hong Kong Cancer Institute and chairman of the Department of Clinical Oncology, and Prof. Qian Tao, head of the Cancer Epigenetics and Tumour V irology Laboratory, Sir Y.K. Pao Centre for Cancer, have successfully demonstrated for the first time in a group of NPC patients who have failed standard therapies, that demethylation of the EBV genome can be achieved using azacytidine. The study was published in the Journal o f Cl ini cal Oncology. Groundbreaking studies such as these ones conducted by the Faculty of Medicine have sign ifican tly improved the survival rates of advanced NPC patients. (Fron left) Prof. Q ian Tao, Prof. Anthony Chan, D r. W.H. Kw an, and D r. Michael Kam D r. Stanley Ho, chairman o fthefoundation, and Prof. Fok Tai-fai, dean o f the C U H K Faculty o fMedicine 5 0 Chinese University Bulletin Spring • Summer 2005