STAT3 and nasopharyngeal carcinoma: The results indicated that the phosphorylated signals of Ser706 in CD44 and Tyr705 in Stat3 were significantly reduced toward the combination of afatinib with IR treatment in HNE2 cells (Figure 4C,D), which further potentiated our hypothesis that the CD44-Stat3 axis affected radiosensitivity upon afatinib treatment in NPC cells.