[Prognostic factors in malignant tumors--significance for quality management]

In a relevant quality management, the long-term prognosis as the definite criterion has to be the focus of interest for the assessment of outcome quality (2). Only with the knowledge of the long-term course by the means of the total survival, the adjusted cancer-related and tumor-free survival it can be assessed, how much a hospital accomplishes in the treatment of cancer. However, not only the treatment is of importance for the outcome, but also a multitude of different parameters mainly regarding the tumor itself but also concerning the patient have to be considered in the assessment of the results. Treatment outcomes can only be compared with the knowledge of these prognostic factors and this is the importance of prognostic factors for quality management.