The prognostic impact of pelvic lymph node metastasis and lymphovascular invasion on bladder cancer.

Objectives: To present long-term results of a single-center series of patients undergoing bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy and radical cystectomy for bladder cancer and to analyze the impact of pelvic lymph node metastasis and lymphovascular invasion on clinical outcome.

Methods: Between 1986 and 2005 833 patients were treated with bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy and radical cystectomy at our institution. 614 of them with valid clinical follow-up information and no neoadjuvant therapy could be evaluated.

Results: Disease-free and overall survival in the entire cohort was 56.7% and 49.5% at 5 years and 52.4% and 38.2% at 10 years, respectively. 28.1% of all patients had pelvic lymph node metastasis. We found organ-confined tumor stages (or=pT3) and positive pelvic lymph nodes had a significantly shorter overall survival than those without lymph node metastasis (P < 0.0001). In the subgroup of or=pT3) (P = 0.004) and lymphovascular invasion (P = 0.001) were independent prognostic parameters.

Conclusions: According to the present series, survival for patients with