Multiple factors influence decision making for the surgical treatment in patients with renal cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Surgical strategy in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is considered based on the renal function. Partial nephrectomy (PN) preserves kidney function better than radical nephrectomy (RN), lowering risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD). The aim was to evaluate whether renal function and other clinical variables were important for surgical treatment selection. METHODS: Patients with RCC, surgically treated between 1994 and 2018 were included. There were 663 patients in all stages, 265 women and 398 men, mean age 66 years. CLINICAL DATA: estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), WHO performance status (WHO-PS), Charlson comorbidity index (CCI), surgery, T-stage, M-stage, RCC type, tumor size, age, and gender were extracted from the medical records. Statistical analysis included Mann-Whitney U, X2-test, and logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Of 663 patients, 455 were treated with RN and 208 with PN. In all patients, preoperative eGFR was significantly higher in PN (80.8) than in RN (77.1, p = 0.015). Using logistic regression tumor size (odds ratio [OR]: 0.96; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.95-0.98, T-stage (OR: 0.46; 95% CI: 0.33-0.65), WHO-PS (OR: 0.39; 95% CI: 0.04-0.57), and CCI (OR: 1.23; 95% CI: 1.05-1.44), associated to treatment selection, while eGFR, M-stage, age, and gender did not. In cTa subgroup, eGFR was also higher in PN (84.6) than in RN (75.0, p = 0.007). Using logistic regression, tumor size (OR: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.83-0.98) and WHO-PS (OR: 0.36; 95% CI: 0.20-0.66) associated to treatment selection, while eGFR, CCI, age, and gender did not. CONCLUSION: Tumor size, CCI scores, T-stage, and WHO-PS, all had an impact on the surgical strategy for all RCC patients. In patients with T1a RCC, tumor size and WHO-PS associated independently with treatment decision. After adjusted analysis, renal function lost its independent association with the treatment strategy in RCC patients.

Surgical waiting times and all-cause mortality in patients with non-metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between surgical waiting times (SWTs) and all-cause mortality (ACM) in non-metastatic patients with RCC, in relation to tumour stage. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This nation-wide population-based cohort study included 9,918 M0 RCC patients registered in the National Swedish Kidney Cancer Register, between 2009 and 2021, followed-up for ACM until 9 December 2021, and having measured SWTs. The associations between primarily SWTs from date of radiological diagnosis to date of surgery (WRS) and secondarily SWTs from date of radiological diagnosis to date of treatment decision (WRT) and date of treatment decision to date of surgery (WTS), in relation to ACM, were analysed using Cox regression analysis, adjusted for clinical and demographic characteristics, stratified and unstratified according to T-stage. RESULTS: During a mean follow-up time of 5 years (49,873 person-years), 23% (n = 2291) of the patients died. The adjusted hazard ratio (AHR) for WRS (months) for all patients was 1.03 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.02-1.04; p < 0.001). When subdividing WRS on T-stage, the AHRs were 1.03 (95% CI = 1.01-1.04; p < 0.001) and 1.05 (95% CI = 1.02-1.08; p = 0.003) for stages T1 and T3, respectively, while non-significant for T2 (p = 0.079) and T4 (p = 0.807). Similar results were obtained for WRT and WTS. CONCLUSIONS: Prolonged SWTs significantly increased the risk of early overall death among patients with RCC. The increased risk of early death from any cause show the importance of shortening SWTs in clinical work of patients with this malignant disease.

Inflammatory response markers and survival prediction in patients with renal cell carcinoma.

INTRODUCTION: Many factors influence the clinical course of patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The most commonly used prognostic indicators are TNM stage, tumor size and RCC type. In this study we evaluated the prognostic relevance of albumin and C-reactive protein (CRP), and Glasgow Prognostic scores (GPS), in patients with primary RCC. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed all patients surgically treated for primary RCC between 1982 and 2018 at Umeå University Hospital. There were 872 patients, 527 males and 345 females. Data on albumin, CRP and GPS points before surgery were extracted, as well as TNM stage, RCC type, tumor grade, tumor size, and primary treatment. The patients were followed for recurrence and death for up to 37.2 years. We used Kaplan-Meier estimators, Cox-proportional hazards models, to assess the relation between potentially prognostic indicators and RCC-specific death, and all-cause mortality. RESULTS: Of 872 patients, 708 had clear-cell RCC, 114 papillary RCC, 36 chromophobe RCC and 9 undefined RCC type while 5 patients had missing RCC type data. Except that, women had a significantly (p = 0.002) lower proportion of pRCC, no difference in RCC types and levels of albumin and CRP was observed between genders. Albumin, CRP, and GPSs were all univariately associated to RCC survival (p < 0.001). CRP demonstrated the strongest prognostic association (HR 1.67 95% Ci (1.53-1.83, overriding both albumin and GPS in multivariable models. The AUC for CRP was 0.77 (95% CI: 0.74-0.80). CONCLUSION: Elevated CRP, low albumin levels, and elevated GPSs were all associated to poor survival in patients with RCC, Only CRP remained independent in multivariate analysis.

Survival advantage of upfront cytoreductive nephrectomy in patients with primary metastatic renal cell carcinoma compared with systemic and palliative treatments in a real-world setting.

BACKGROUND: Recently, the CARMENA and SURTIME studies, suggested that upfront cytoreductive nephrectomy (CN) should be abandoned for patients with intermediate and high-risk metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). However, CN remains an indication in low-risk and when immediate systemic treatment is not required. The aim was to evaluate the long-term overall survival (OS) in patients with primary mRCC, based on the first line treatment. METHODS: There were 1483 patients with primary mRCC in the National Kidney Cancer Registry from 2005 to 2013. Data on primary treatment, TNM stage, RCC type, tumor size, patient age and sex were extracted. Survival time was calculated from time of diagnosis to time of death or until July 2019. Mann-Whitney U and Chi-square tests, the Kaplan-Meyer method and Cox regression analyses were used. RESULTS: Patients primary treated with CN had a significantly longer OS (p < .001) than patients primary treated with systemic therapy or palliation. In a Cox regression multivariate analysis, the hazard ratio for CN compared with no CN was 1.600, 95%Ci (1.492 - 1.691), p < .001. Also occurrence of lymph node metastases, T-stage, patients age and year of diagnosis, remained as independent predictors of OS. CONCLUSION: Patients primary treated with CN survived significantly longer than patients primary treated with systemic therapy or palliation, in all age groups. CN was an important first-line treatment option in mRCC patients.

Spinal analgesia improves surgical outcome after open nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma: a randomized controlled study.

OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated whether more effective perioperative analgesia can be part of a multimodal approach to minimizing morbidity and improving postoperative management after the open surgical approaches frequently used in the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The aim of the study was to determine whether spinal anesthesia with clonidine can enhance postoperative analgesia, speed up mobilization and reduce the length of hospital stay (LOS). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between 2012 and 2015, 135 patients with RCC were randomized, in addition to general anesthesia, to receive either spinal analgesia with clonidine or epidural analgesia, stratified to surgical technique. Inclusion criteria were American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score of III or less, age over 18 years and no chronic pain medication or cognitive disorders. RESULTS: The median LOS was 4 days for patients in the spinal group and 6 days in the epidural group (p = 0.001). There were no differences regarding duration of surgery, blood loss, RENAL score, tumor size or complications between the given analgesia methods. A limitation was that different anesthesiologists were responsible for administering spinal or epidural anesthesia, as in a real-world clinical situation. CONCLUSIONS: In this randomized controlled study, spinal analgesia with clonidine was superior to continuous epidural analgesia in patients operated on with open nephrectomy, based on shorter LOS. A shorter LOS in the study group indicates faster mobilization and improved analgesia. Spinal analgesia did not carry more complications than epidural analgesia.