PREDICTING THE OUTCOME OF RADICAL RADIOTHERAPY FOR INVASIVE BLADDER-CANCER

The correlation between T stage, histological grade, the presence of s quamous metaplasia, and nuclear morphometry scores and response to rad iotherapy and survival was investigated in 60 patients with muscle inv asive transitional cell carcinomas of the bladder. Patients with T2 tu mours showed a complete response significantly more often than those w ith T3 lesions. Multivariate analysis showed that T stage and initial response to radiotherapy were very strong predictors of survival thoug h they were not independent variables. Histological grade, the presenc e of squamous metaplasia, and nuclear morphometry scores were not foun d to have any predictive value.