Bladder cancer: factors affecting survival.

The identification of factors present at the time of initial evaluation may be important to predict the prognosis in patients with bladder tumor. Attempts were made to identify predictive factors of recurrence involving comparisons based on the 12-month recurrence rate and time to recurrence in a prospective clinical investigation of 468 patients with bladder tumor observed during a 5-year interval. In newly diagnosed bladder cancer patients stage, grade and size of the largest tumor at initial evaluation were significant factors affecting survival, and these factors acted independently. Age and stage were significant factors in patients with a history of bladder tumor. We herein estimated survival curves using the product-limit estimate. Comparisons of survival curves and analyses involving more than 1 potential prognostic factor were accomplished using Cox's proportional hazards model.