Predicting the outcome of radical radiotherapy for invasive bladder cancer

The correlation between T stage, histological grade, the presence of squamous metaplasia, and nuclear morphometry scores and response to radiotherapy and survival was investigated in 60 patients with muscle invasive transitional cell carcinomas of the bladder. Patients with T2 tumours showed a complete response significantly more often than those with T3 lesions. Multivariate analysis showed that T stage and initial response to radiotherapy were very strong predictors of survival though they were not independent variables. Histological grade, the presence of squamous metaplasia, and nuclear morphometry scores were not found to have any predictive value.