Curative radiotherapy in patients with anal cancer: Clinical outcomes and prognostic factors in a single-institution experience

Purpose: Our aim was to retrospectively analyse a series of patients with anal cancer treated with curative intent at a single institute in terms of survival and local disease control. Materials and methods: Forty-two patients with anal cancer were treated with primary radiotherapy with or without concurrent chemotherapy. The influence of the prognostic factors on overall (OS), disease-free (DFS), disease-specific (DSS), colostomy-free (CFS) and metastasis-free (MFS) survival was evaluated. Results: Nine patients had stage I, 15 stage II, four stage IIIA and 14 stage IIIB disease. Tumour progression/ persistence occurred in five patients (12%). The 5-year OS, DSS, DFS, CFS and MFS were 72.7%, 84.2%, 85.7%, 81.1% and 87.1%, respectively. On univariate analysis, T stage emerged as highly significant for OS, DSS, CFS and DFS, whereas N status was a significant prognostic factor for DSS. On multivariate analysis, T stage was a significant prognostic factor for OS and CFS. Conclusions: Our data support the view that combined chemoradiation treatment of anal cancer is feasible and may provide survival benefits with an acceptable rate of adverse effects. We should consider T and N stages as important prognostic factors for survival. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Italia.