Description:
<jats:p>This study presents a new approach to determine significant prognostic factors for patients suffering from the bladder cancer. The analysis of medical data has been performed by the use of the Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM). The SOM allows visualizing and identifying the prognostic factors indicating which of them are significant. A database comprised of ninety patients has been used in this study. Seven predictors were investigated. The cluster analysis indicates that the significant prognostic factors for the bladder cancer are: histological grade (cG) and stage (cT). The obtained results also showed that the sex and the cG variables are highly correlated and that the number of non-classic differentiation (NDNc) features in bladder cancer is somewhat correlated to surgically removed lymphnode number (LN) and metastatic positive lymphnode number (PLN).</jats:p>