Prognostic factors in tumours of gynaecological origin

Abstract

Knowledge of the prognostic factors helps us to intuit the evolution of the disease, to calculate the patient's chances of survival; to consider the possibilities of relapse; to stratify patients into different groups, to evaluate the benefit of administering a specific treatment and the response to the same, to compare different treatments and to design studies. The gynaecological tumours include tumours of the ovary, the uterine cancers, tumours of the cervix, the vagina and the vulva. Depending on the origin of the cell the cancer derives from, these can be of epithelial, mesenchymal or sarcomatous origin and of germinal origin. Only the prognostic factors of the epithelial tumours have been collected as they correspond to more than 90% of gynaecological tumours. The prognosis of each of them is determined in the first place by the tumour stage, which in gynaecological tumours is determined according to the norms of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (IFGO). Besides the stage, the intrinsic characteristics of the patient also have an influence on prognosis, such as age or general state, histological type and certain characteristics of the tumoural cell.