Preoperative prognosis for cancer of the vulva

Fourteen preoperative variables were individually assessed on 408 patients with primary vulvar cancer to determine their effect upon survival. Age, clinical node involvement, secondary tumor spread, tumor size, and menses were found to be the best individual indicators of survival time. Further analyses explored the dependence of survival time on these 5 variables jointly. Age was followed for by dividing the patients into 4 age groups; in each of these strata 4 prognostic categories, based on the variables clinical groin node involvement and secondary tumor spread, were defined: category 1, impalpable nodes and no secondary tumor spread; category 2, palpable nodes and no secondary tumor spread; category 3, impalpable nodes and secondary tumor spread; and category 4, palpable nodes and secondary tumor spread. Survival curves for each of these categories were plotted and showed progressively worsening prognoses from group 1 through group 4. It is believed that such methods should be used preoperatively to produce staging criteria and estimates of prognosis more objective and informative than those in common use.