We analyzed the prognostic factors influencing survival after surgeries for upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UUT-UC) with longer follow-up periods than in previous studies. Between January 2000 and December 2004, 386 patients underwent nephroureterectomy for UUT-UC. The data for the 221 patients with UUT-UC were retrospectively reviewed. Nine variables were evaluated for association with the survival outcomes of cause-specific survival. The prognostic significance was tested univariately with the log-rank test. The simultaneous effects of multiple prognostic factors were estimated by multiple regression analysis using the Cox proportional hazards model. The median follow-up was 38.4 months. The 5-year over all survival was 62.3%. Significant prognostic factors for disease-specific survival rate on univariate analysis were pathological stage (p0.0001), tumor grade (p0.0324), and venous invasion (p0.0001). Multivariate analysis revealed that only venous invasion was significant for disease-specific survival rate (p0.0205). Venous invasion was the only independent prognostic factor in pathologically localized UUT-UC
