Prognostic factors and outcomes of patients with primary urothelial carcinoma of the ureter

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the prognostic factors and outcomes of patients with primary urothelial carcinoma of the ureter. Methods A retrospective study was conducted on 72 patients diagnosed with primary urothelial carcinoma of the ureter in our hospital and received surgical treatment from January 2010 to December 2013. The effects of relative prognostic factors collected from clinicopathologic data were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analysis. Results A total of 72 patients were enrolled in this study, including 49 (68%) male patients and 23 (32%) female patients, in which the mean age was 66.7 years. The mean follow-up time was 41.4 (range from 13-102) months. Among them, 46 patients were died during the follow-up. The three and five-year overall survival rates were 61.1% and 40.3% respectively, with a median survival time of 40 months. Univariate analysis showed that age, gender, tumor side, tumor size, hydronephrosis, hypertension and diabetes were not significantly associated with the prognosis of the patients. Cox multivariate analysis indicated that tumor grade and clinical stage were independent risk factors. Conclusions In patients with primary urothelial carcinoma of the ureter, the advanced tumor grade and clinical stage were related to a poor prognosis. Key words: Urologic Neoplasms; Disease-Free Survival; Prognosis