Histological variant as the significant predictor of survival in patients with lymph node positive urothelial carcinoma of the bladder

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of histological variants of urothelial carcinoma (UC) on survival outcomes in patients with lymph node (LN) positive UC of the bladder. We reviewed and analyzed the clinical data from 424 patients who underwent radical cystectomy (RC) with pelvic lymph node dissection (PLND) for UC of the bladder and who did not receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy in our institution between 1991 and 2012. In total, 92 patients (21.7%) had histologically confirmed LN positive disease. In the LN negative group (332 patients), histological variants of UC were not a significant predictor in univariate analysis. However, in the LN positive group, histological variants of UC were a significant independent prognostic factor of overall survival (hazard ratio (HR) 3.54; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.77–7.08, p < 0.001) and cancer specific survival (HR 3.66; 95% CI 1.69–7.90, p = 0.001) in both uni-variate and multivariate Cox regression analyses. The presence of histological variants of UC may indicate a worse prognosis in LN positive patients after RC with PLND for UC of the bladder and more aggressive adjuvant therapy may be required for the improvement of postoperative survival.