Prognostic factors in patients with stage 4B renal cell carcinoma following nephrectomy

We studied on prognostic factors in 106 patients with stage 4B renal cell carcinoma having distant metastases at the diagnosis. In this study, we excluded patients who died after nephrectomy within 30 days and those who died without cancer. As the result, significant differences were observed upon the 8 factors in those patients as summarized bellow: 1) The histological malignancy (grade): there observed an improved survival in patients with grade II compared to those with grade III and IV. 2) The opportunity of diagnosis: we classified the patients into 4 types: patients with urinary symptoms, those with non-urinary symptoms, those with metastatic symptoms and those with tumours found incidentally. There observed an improved survival in patients with tumours found incidentally compared to those with urinary symptoms and non-urinary symptoms. 3) The number of 5 laboratory findings such as anaemia, positive reaction of C-reactive protein (CRP), elevation of erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), elevation of alpha 2-globulin and immunosuppressive acidic protein (IAP): there observed an improved survival in patients with less than 2 abnormal laboratory findings compared to those with more than 3. 4) The regional lymph node metastasis: there observed an improved survival in patients without lymph node metastasis compared to those with lymph node metastasis. 5) The number of metastatic organ: there observed an improved survival in patients with one organ metastasis compared to those with more than two. 6) The treatment modality: there observed an improved survival in patients receiving interferon (IFN) therapy/IFN plus chemotherapy than those receiving chemotherapy alone.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)