[Prognosis and prognostic factors in oncology and oncologic surgery ]

At present time, we can see increasing interest in prognosis and prognostic factors. This review refers to the problems of prognostics in oncology and oncosurgery. Authors emphasize importance of prognosis and its integrating role in issues of treatment tactics and strategy selection. This article presents main classification of prognostic factors, e.g. the subject-based one, which consists of three groups-tumor-related, host-related and environment related factors. Factors that belong to the first group are anatomic extent of disease that is classified according to the TNM classification, tumor histopathologic factors and a great number of molecular and genetic factors. The question of clinical relevance of those factors is discussed. Host-related prognostic factors include inherent demographic characteristics, performance status, comorbid conditions and others. Environment-related prognostic factors involve physician, the health care system and society as a whole. This group of prognostic factors is less studied, despite the fact that namely these factors can have fundamental importance in questions of disease outcome.