The complications of concurrent chemoradiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma include dryness of mouth, sensorineural hearing loss, dental caries, trismus, pituitary dysfunction, myelitis, paralysis of cranial nerves IX–XII, massive neck fibrosis and pharyngeal wall necrosis. Tornwaldt's cyst formation after concurrent chemoradiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma has not been reported previously in the world literature. Tornwaldt's cyst, a persistent pharyngeal bursa, is found in about 3 per cent of the adult population, although the majority of these are asymptomatic. We describe the previously unreported complication of Tornwaldt's cyst formation after concurrent chemoradiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

We treated 114 patients with advanced inoperable head and neck cancer with a combined-modality protocol that included two cycles of chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy or three cycles of chemotherapy and in 18 patients with a radiosensitizing agent. At the beginning of the treatment all but one patient presented with a stage IV cancer. With a follow-up of 42–58 months, four patients are alive (three from the radiosensitizing group and one of the chemotherapy group). Complete response after the radiosensitizing agent correlated with superior prolonged disease-free survival in comparison to complete responses after chemotherapy at the level of p<0.009.