title: Prognosis scores of Tokuhashi and Tomita for patients with spinal metastases of renal cancer.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, University of Ulm, Oberer Eselsberg 45, D-89081, Ulm, Germany. benjamin.ulmar@uni-ulm.de
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ulmar
authors.forename: Ulrike
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Naumann
authors.forename: Sibel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Catalkaya
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Muche
authors.forename: Balkan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cakir
authors.forename: Rene
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Heiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Reichel
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Huch
mesh_terms: 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*