Factor analysis of medical data of patients with primary and metastatic vaginal cancer

This study adds up to the series of studies on application of factorial designs to analysis of cancer patients medical data. Namely, besides the information regarding his/her disease, each hospitalized cancer patient also provides the variety of data regarding his/her psychological, cultural, social, economical, genetic, constitutional and medical background. The aim of this particular study was to analyze clinical data in patients with primary and metastatic vaginal cancer and to compare them with the results of factor analytic approach in some other gynecological cancers, namely vulvar and cervical cancer. In this particular study the authors have processed the data regarding 25 characteristics of 200 consecutive patients with primary vaginal cancer and 300 consecutive patients with metastatic vaginal cancer treated between 1980 and 1994 at the Department for Gynecological Oncology of the University Hospital for Gynecology and Obstetrics, Zagreb, Croatia. The results revealed numerous repeating clusters of variable correlations across all four factor analyses in patients with cervical, vulvar, primary and metastatic vaginal cancers.