Prognostic factors in renal cell carcinoma

We studied 569 cases of renal cell carcinoma in the files of the Department of Pathology of the Norwegian Radium Hospital from 1964 to 1974. A nephrectomy had been performed in all cases. Clinical information on sex, age, survival time and metastases was traced. The histological slides were examined and tumour growth pattern, cell type, cell shape, nuclear atypia, abnormal nucleoli, nuclear grade, vascular invasion and tumour demarcation were all evaluated. Besides well-known prognostic factors such as tumour stage, presence or absence of metastases and vascular invasion, nuclear grade was found to be a useful prognostic factor. Younger patients were found to do better than older, and women better than men. Smaller tumours carried a better prognosis than larger and clear cell tumours had a better prognosis than those composed of eosinophilic or basophilic cells. The presence of spindle cells was a bad prognostic omen.