• Benjamin Ulmar, Ulrike Naumann, Sibel Catalkaya, Rainer Muche, Balkan Cakir, Rene Schmidt, Heiko Reichel, and Klaus Huch.
• Department of Orthopedics, University of Ulm, Oberer Eselsberg 45, D-89081, Ulm, Germany. benjamin.ulmar@uni-ulm.de
• Ann. Surg. Oncol. 2007 Feb 1;14(2):998-1004.

BackgroundRetrospective evaluation of the prognosis scores of Tokuhashi and Tomita for life expectancy in 37 consecutive patients with spinal metastases secondary to renal cancer who underwent surgery. The score of Tokuhashi, composed of six parameters, each rated from zero to two, has been proposed in 1990 for the prognostic assessment of patients with spinal metastases. In 2001, Tomita et al. created another prognostic score, composed of three parameters, growth behaviour of the primary tumor (slow, moderate and rapid) and the evidence of visceral and bony metastases.MethodsThirty-seven patients, surgically treated for vertebral metastases secondary to renal cancer were studied. The scores according to Tokuhashi and Tomita were calculated for each patient.ResultsApplying the Tokuhashi Score for the estimation of life expectancy of renal cancer patients with vertebral metastases was found to provide very reliable results with a statistically high significance. The analysis according to Tomita showed no correlation between predicted and real survival. The statistical analysis did not show any significance.ConclusionFor surgical decisions in renal cancer patients with spinal metastases, the prognostic score of Tokuhashi appears to be much more valuable than the Tomita score.

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