Prognosis scores of Tokuhashi and Tomita for patients with spinal metastases of renal cancer.
BACKGROUND
Retrospective evaluation of the prognosis scores of Tokuhashi and Tomita for life expectancy in 37 consecutive patients with spinal metastases secondary to renal cancer who underwent surgery. The score of Tokuhashi, composed of six parameters, each rated from zero to two, has been proposed in 1990 for the prognostic assessment of patients with spinal metastases. In 2001, Tomita et al. created another prognostic score, composed of three parameters, growth behaviour of the primary tumor (slow, moderate and rapid) and the evidence of visceral and bony metastases.


METHODS
Thirty-seven patients, surgically treated for vertebral metastases secondary to renal cancer were studied. The scores according to Tokuhashi and Tomita were calculated for each patient.


RESULTS
Applying the Tokuhashi Score for the estimation of life expectancy of renal cancer patients with vertebral metastases was found to provide very reliable results with a statistically high significance. The analysis according to Tomita showed no correlation between predicted and real survival. The statistical analysis did not show any significance.


CONCLUSIONS
For surgical decisions in renal cancer patients with spinal metastases, the prognostic score of Tokuhashi appears to be much more valuable than the Tomita score.
Ulmar
Benjamin
B
Department of Orthopedics, University of Ulm, Oberer Eselsberg 45, D-89081, Ulm, Germany. benjamin.ulmar@uni-ulm.de
Naumann
Ulrike
U
Catalkaya
Sibel
S
Muche
Rainer
R
Cakir
Balkan
B
Schmidt
Rene
R
Reichel
Heiko
H
Huch
Klaus
K
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002292:Carcinoma, Renal Cell / Q000556:secondary / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007680:Kidney Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013125:Spinal Neoplasms / Q000556:secondary / Q000601:surgery*