MITOTIC-ACTIVITY INDEX, VOLUME CORRECTED MITOTIC INDEX AND HUMAN PAPILLOMA-VIRUS SUGGESTIVE MORPHOLOGY ARE NOT PROGNOSTIC FACTORS IN CARCINOMA OF THE ESOPHAGUS

Radiation treatment, endoscopic dilatations and laser treatment offer an alternative to surgery as palliation in oesophageal cancer, and the refore it is essential to assess the prognostic factors preoperatively in order to select the treatment individually. Mitotic activity index (MAI), volume corrected mitotic index (M/V-index) and histologic evid ence for human papillomavirus (HPV) involvement together with other pr ognostic factors were studied in 61 patients with oesophageal squamous cell carcinomas. No patient was lost from follow-up and 18% of patien ts were alive at the end of follow-up. Evidence for HPV involvement wa s found in 11 (18%) of 61 patients, which was significantly (p<0.001) less than in a previous series of Chinese patients. Histological grade (p=0.025), lymph node status (p=0.002), presence of distant metastasi s (p=0.004), surgical resection (p=0.03) and nuclear pleomorphism (p=0 .04) were significant independent prognostic factors in univariate ana lysis. In multivariate analysis, the length of the tumour (p=0.0002) a s well as its histological grade (p=0.0001) significantly predicted th e patient survival Surgical resection was almost included into the mod el (p=0.11). On the other hand, MAI, M/V-index or HPV histology did no t reach statistical significance as prognostic factors.