Marital status does not affect the cancer-specific survival of patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma treated with nephroureterectomy: a propensity score matching study

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between marital status and the prognosis of patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) treated with nephroureterectomy (NU). METHODS: Patients with UTUC who received NU treatment were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database between 2004 and 2015. Kaplan–Meier curves and Cox regression were used to analyze the effect of marital status on cancer-specific survival (CSS), and 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) was performed for married and unmarried patients to explore further the effect of marital status on patients with UTUC. RESULTS: Among 1565 eligible patients, 960 (61.3%) were married and 605 (38.7%) were unmarried, of which 146 (9.3%) were divorced/separated, 306 (19.6%) were widowed, and 153 (9.8%) were single. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that marital status was not an independent risk factor for patients with UTUC treated with NU. After stratification by grade and SEER stage, multivariate analysis showed that there was no significant difference in 5-year CSS between divorced/separated, widowed, and single patients compared with married patients in different grades and SEER stages. In addition, after PSM analysis, marital status was still not an independent risk factor for patients with UTUC treated with NU. CONCLUSION: For patients with UTUC treated with NU, marital status has no prognostic effect on CSS.