Clinical investigation of 93 patients with histologically confirmed renal pelvic and ureteral cancer were performed. These patients consisted of 55 males and 38 females with a mean age of 64.8 years. There were 61 cases of renal pelvic cancer, 55 cases of ureteral cancer and 23 with cancers of both sites. Thirty-four cases were associated with bladder cancer and 41 of 82 patients had multiple tumors. The overall 5-year survival rate was 46.0%. 5-year survival of stages pTa, pT1, pT2, pT3, and pT4, was 93.3%, 71.8%, 37.5%, 30.4% and 10.5%, respectively. In this report, we evaluated various prognostic factors according to the survival rate. Sex, age, tumor localization, multiplicity, associated bladder cancer and concomitance of CIS had no influence on survival. In the ABC analysis, the B group showed a tendency for a poor prognosis. However it may be explained from the fact that the B group contained more patients at advanced stages than the other groups. Tumor grade, tumor stage, pV factor and pL factor had a significant effect on survivals. But tumor grade, pV and pL factors were closely related to the tumor stage. Thus the stage was thought to be the most important factor in the prognosis of upper urinary tract cancer. Different surgical procedures and irradiaion also did not affect the prognosis of the patients with the same degree of invasion. Chemotherapy for all stages had no effect on survivals compared with non-chemotherapic group. However only for pT3 and higher stage cases, cisplatin-based chemotherapy improved the prognosis compared with patients not given chemotherapy.
In conclusion, chemotherapy containing cisplatin should be considered for treatment of high stage upper urinary tract cancer.