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

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. 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. 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. 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.