Clinical investigation of 93 patients with histologically confirmed renal pelvic and
ureteral cancer were performed. These patients consisted of 55 males and 38 females with a mean age of 64.8 years. There were 61 cases of renal
pelvic cancer, 55 cases of
ureteral cancer and 23 with
cancers of both sites. Thirty-four cases were associated with
bladder cancer and 41 of 82 patients had multiple
tumors. The overall 5-year survival rate was 46.0%. 5-year survival of stages pTa, pT1, pT2, pT3, and pT4, was 93.3%, 71.8%, 37.5%, 30.4% and 10.5%, respectively. In this report, we evaluated various prognostic factors according to the survival rate. Sex, age,
tumor localization, multiplicity, associated
bladder cancer and concomitance of CIS had no influence on survival. In the ABC analysis, the B group showed a tendency for a poor prognosis. However it may be explained from the fact that the B group contained more patients at advanced stages than the other groups.
Tumor grade,
tumor stage, pV factor and pL factor had a significant effect on survivals. But
tumor grade, pV and pL factors were closely related to the
tumor stage. Thus the stage was thought to be the most important factor in the prognosis of upper
urinary tract cancer. Different
surgical procedures and irradiation also did not affect the prognosis of the patients with the same degree of invasion.
Chemotherapy for all stages had no effect on survivals compared with non-chemotherapeutic group. However only for pT3 and higher stage cases,
cisplatin-based
chemotherapy improved the prognosis compared with patients not given
chemotherapy. In conclusion,
chemotherapy containing
cisplatin should be considered for treatment of high stage upper
urinary tract cancer.