A total of 588 patients underwent RC and bilateral lymphadenectomy for UCB from 1995 to 2005. Immunohistochemistry for p53, p21, pRB, p27, Ki-67, and survivin was performed on tissue microarrays from the RC specimen. Smoking features were routinely assessed at diagnosis. Multivariable Cox regression models assessed time to disease recurrence and cancer-specific mortality.
Of the 588 patients, 128 were never (22%), 283 former (48%), and 177 current smokers (30%). In total, 227 patients experienced disease recurrence, whereas 190 died of UCB. Smoking status was independently associated with both outcomes (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.48 and 2.62, for former and current vs. never smokers, respectively, P<0.001). All markers were significantly associated with both outcomes (P<0.05) except for survivin. The combination of the 4 cell cycle markers p53, p21, pRB, and p27 increased the discrimination of clinicopathologic model for former and current vs. never smokers with c-indices 0.779 and 0.780, respectively (base model c-indices of 0.741 and 0.740 for former and current vs. never smokers, respectively). The further addition of smoking features and biomarker status improved the discrimination of the model (c-indices of 0.783 and 0.786 for former and current vs. never smokers, respectively).
We confirmed that smoking information and tissue markers status improve prognostication of UCB outcomes after RC; the combination of both reaching the highest level of discrimination.