ABSTRACT
Aims and principles of prognostic factors 922 Investigation of prognostic factors 922 Types of prognostic factors and their interrelationship 923 General patient factors 923 Age 923 Gender 924 Performance status 924 Systemic symptoms 925 Clinical factors 925 Tumor location and size 925 Hematologic parameters 925 Leukocyte counts 925 Immunologic factors 925 Tumor subtype 925 Tumor cell proliferation 926 Apoptosis 926 Adhesion 926 Host immune response to tumor 926 Angiogenesis 926
Other immunologic factors 926 Risk adaptation 926 Hodgkin lymphoma 928 Prognostic factors for early stages (CSI-II) 928 Prognostic factors for advanced stages 929 Aggressive lymphomas 930 Indolent lymphomas 931 Chronic lymphocytic leukemia 931 Multiple myeloma 932 Acute lymphocytic leukemia 933 Factors measured after starting treatment 933 Hodgkin lymphoma 933 Non-Hodgkin lymphoma 934 Chronic lymphocytic leukemia 934 Multiple myeloma 934 Acute lymphocytic leukemia 934 Summary and outlook 934 Key points 935 References 935
A prognostic factor is a measurement or classification of an individual patient, usually determined at or soon after diagnosis, which gives information on the likely outcome of the disease. This information will generally be phrased in terms of probabilities – for instance, the probability of cure for various values of a prognostic factor – or in terms of expected length of survival. It may be used for informing the patient, or in the context of clinical trials for defining or describing the study population or adjusting the data analysis. However, for the clinician the most important role of the prognostic factor is to help choose an appropriate treatment strategy.
