Introduction: The clinical course of renal cancer remains difficult to predict. Attempts to appoint new independent prognostic factors (IPFs) and comparisons of already identified ones among populations are inevitable to develop more effective prognostic instruments. The aim of this study was to evaluate IPFs of overall survival in a given population of patients with renal cancer.
Materials and methods: Retrospective analysis of 148 patients with renal cancer treated at the Oncological Institute in Cracow from 2000 to 2007 was performed. Mean follow-up was 51 months. Using the log-rang test, a group of clinicopathological and biochemical features was analyzed in respect to their influence on overall survival. Results were presented as Kaplan-Meier curves. Final identification of IPFs was made by multivariate Cox regression analysis.
Results: Overall survival rate at 1, 2, and 5-year follow-up was 58.8%, 38.2%, and 21.4%, respectively. The set of identified IPFs consisted of performance status, smoking history, hemoglobin concentration, anatomical staging, tumor grade, and the presence of microvascular invasion. It was confirmed that only nephrectomy increases significantly overall survival.
Conclusions: Apart from smoking history, the role of all other IPFs identified in our study is well documented in the literature. Smoking history seems to be a new IPF with strong negative impact on survival in patients with RCC.
Keywords: overall survival; population study; prognostic factors; renal cancer.