Prognostic significance of pretherapeutic and therapeutic factors in patients with advanced cancer of the uterine cervix treated with radical radiotherapy alone

The prognostic importance of various pretherapeutic and therapeutic factors was analysed in a group of 413 cervical cancer patients with stage IIB (18 3 pts) and IIIB (230 pts) treated with radical radiotherapy, which consiste d of external irradiation and intracavitary brachytherapy. Univariate analy sis of pretherapeutic factors revealed the prognostic significance of patie nt age, history of abortion, stage, haemoglobin and hematocrit levels. Five -year overall survival rate in stage IIB patients was 51%, in stage IIIB 40 % and the respective rates for local control at each stage were 61%, and 46 %. Univariate analysis of therapeutic factors showed that survival and loca l control rates increased with the dose, but a significant difference was f ound only in the case of a paracentral (point A) dose. In a multivariate an alysis only patient age, abortions, and clinical stage appeared to have a s ignificant and independent impact on survival. Linear regression analysis r esults indicated that prolongation of treatment time between 33 and 108 day s caused a loss of local control of 0.36% per day.