Possibilities for an extended classification of bladder cancer

Patients with bladder cancer were evaluated for T-class, histo-pathological grade and U-CEA (urinary carcinoembryonic antigen) before treatment and the cytological picture 4 months after treatment. Previous work has shown that these variables are not significantly intercorrelated. Scores were computed, consisting of the sums of these (dichotomized) variables. In a statistical analysis with the life-table technique, the scored variables have been logrank tested for a prognostic trend. In 155 patients, p for symptom-free survival between subgroups with low and high scores was 0.0019 and for relative survival 0.0005. This implies that a combination of variables may have predictive value in bladder cancer.