Recent Advances in Surveillance Strategies for Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: From Guideline Follow-up to Individualized Precision Surveillance

The review compares and analyzes current major NPC follow-up guidelines, covering follow-up frequency, imaging modalities (MRI and PET), plasma EBV-DNA monitoring, and functional assessments. Rather than reporting a single guideline or a single detection modality, it places follow-up frequency, imaging and molecular monitoring, and functional assessment within one comparative framework, offering an integrated overview of the existing surveillance system. This is narrative-review-level evidence based on comparison and analysis of existing guidelines and literature; no specific sample sizes or effect sizes are given in the text.

Studies suggest that risk-stratified, individualized follow-up strategies, such as those based on conditional survival models, can enhance the cost-effectiveness of surveillance. It moves follow-up from a uniform schedule toward risk-stratified individualized arrangements, offering a new way to organize surveillance resources. The text phrases this as 'Studies suggest,' an inductive indication drawn from prior work; no specific cost-effectiveness data are presented in this article.

Radiomics and artificial intelligence show promise for improving recurrence risk assessment, prognostic stratification, and individualized surveillance. It brings radiomics and artificial intelligence into the NPC surveillance pathway, extending beyond traditional image interpretation and EBV-DNA-based follow-up. The text phrases this as 'show promise,' a summary at the level of application prospects and research progress; no specific model performance metrics are provided.

Advances in genomics and radiomics offer new opportunities for predicting complications and guiding treatment adjustments. It expands the function of surveillance from merely detecting recurrence or metastasis to predicting complications and guiding treatment adjustment. This is a review-level synthesis of research directions; no specific study designs or quantitative results are given in the text.

This article is suited to readers who want an overview of the NPC surveillance landscape, including clinical and research audiences interested in follow-up frequency, MRI/PET, plasma EBV-DNA, and functional assessment, as well as those interested in the application prospects of genomics, radiomics, and artificial intelligence in surveillance; its conclusions are oriented toward the goal of individualized precision surveillance rather than operational specifications for any single test.

A careful reader may still wonder: how exactly the guidelines differ in follow-up frequency and imaging choice; how risk-stratification tools such as conditional survival models perform in real populations; what validation stage radiomics and artificial intelligence studies have reached; and how mature the evidence is for genomics and radiomics in predicting complications and guiding treatment adjustment. Because this reading is at the summary level, these details are not elaborated in the loaded text and remain questions for further consultation of the original article.