Prognostic indicators for response to therapy and survival in patients with metastatic renal cell cancer treated with interferon alpha-2 beta and vinblastine

Abstract

Only one third of all patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma respond to immunochemotherapy. Improved patient selection could render such treatment unnecessary in many cases. The goal of the study was to test various factors for their prognostic value as predictors of success of immunochemotherapy and patient survival in metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Fifty patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma were subjected to immunochemotherapy with interferon alpha-2 beta and vinblastine. Different variables such as age, sex, location of metastasis, primary or late metastasis, performance status, histologic status, overexpression of the p53 protein and cell proliferation as assessed by immunohistochemistry, and deoxyribonucleic acid-ploidy were considered as potential prognostic factors for response to immunochemotherapy and survival. Thirty percent (15) of the cases responded to therapy: 2 complete and 13 partial remissions. In univariate analysis, the proliferative activity (Ki-S5 labeling index) emerged as the statistically most significant prognostic factor (P = 0.0013) for prediction of successful immunochemotherapy in metastatic renal cell carcinoma. The second most significant factor was the location of metastases (P = 0.015), whereas all other parameters did not achieve statistical significance. As to overall survival, responsiveness to therapy was the most significant predictor (P = 0.0003), followed by Ki-S5 scores (P = 0.025). All other factors, including the sites of metastasic spread (P = 0.21), were not statistically relevant. Proliferation status in terms of Ki-S5 immunoreactive scores appears to be a valuable predictor of the responsiveness to immunochemotherapy. Overall survival appears to depend essentially on disease progression and tumor cell proliferation. Other alleged prognostic factors, such as performance status, sarcomatoid histology, and metastasis location, were not significant in this study.