Survival of the upper-urothelial-cancer patients from the Balkan nephropathy endemic and nonendemic areas.

Sixty rural patients with upper urothelial tumors (UUT) have been followed for 10-14 years after they underwent surgery. Residential history revealed that 21 of them spent at least 20 years in an area where the Balkan nephropathy (BN) was endemic. These patients experienced a better survival than those who had not been exposed in BN foci. An opposite finding of the only author who previously tried to quantify survival in the same region by a similar approach was explained by two main reasons: his failure to control a considerable age difference between the two groups, and a restriction of his analysis only to the early stages of the tumors.