[Prognostic implication of morphometric stromal parameters of renal pelvis and ureteral transitional cell carcinomas]

To evaluate prognostic value of morphometric studies of the stroma of transitional cell carcinomas of the renal pelvis and ureter, we studied retrospectively the data of primary examination and follow-up of 75 patients (49 males, 65% and 26 females, 35%; mean age 61.9 +/- 1.2 years) given radical surgical treatment for cancer of the renal pelvis and ureter. Five-year survival in the absence of tumor progression was 23%. Morphological examination diagnosed transitional cell carcinoma with invasion pT1, pT2, pT3 and pT4 in 3(4%), 15(20%), 47(63%) and 10(13%) cases and differentiation degree G1, G2, G3 in 31(41%), 15(20%) and 29(39%) cases, respectively. In addition to the standard morphological examination of the tumor, we made morphometry of stromal and tumor area, analysed composition and count of stromal effector cells (lymphocytes, eosinophilic and neutrophilic leukocytes, macrophages, mast and plasmic cells), the degree of stromal vascularization. Prognostic value of the above parameters was estimated according to significance of their correlation with postoperative survival of the patients. The survival correlated with the depth of cancer invasion (p = 0.005) and differentiation of tumor tissue (p = 0.006), high cell infiltration of tumor stroma is prognostically unfavourable (R2 = 0.03; F = 3.41; p = 0.069) as well as weak presentation of stromal component of the tumor (p = 0.056). The lowest survival was observed in patients with cancer of the renal pelvis and ureter with a great number of mast cells (p = 0.056), macrophages (p = 0.037) and neutrophils (p = 0.029) in the tumor stroma. According to the results of multiple regression analysis (R2 = 0.08; F = 5.42; p = 0.024), five-year postoperative survival most closely correlated with cancer invasion depth (p < 0.001), degree of tumor cells differentiation (p < 0.001) and number of macrophages infiltrating tumor stroma (p < 0.001). Significance of survival prognosis for patients with cancer of renal pelvis and ureter can be raised by estimation of mean number of free stromal cells and expression of stromal component.