Clinical Significance of Lymph Node Dissection in Patients with Muscle-Invasive Upper Urinary Tract Transitional Cell Carcinoma Treated with Nephroureterectomy

We investigated the value of lymph node dissection in patients with cN0 muscle-invasive transitional cell carcinoma of the upper urinary tract (UUT-TCC). Medical records of 152 patients with cN0 muscle-invasive UUT-TCC, who underwent nephroureterectomy between 1986 and 2005, were reviewed. Sixty-three patients (41.4%) underwent lymph node dissection. The median number of lymph nodes harvested was 6 (range, 1 to 35), and from these, lymph node involvement was confirmed in 9 patients (14.3%). Locoregional recurrence (LR) and disease-recurrence (DR) occurred in 29 patients and 63 patients, respectively. Fifty-five patients (36.2%) had died of cancer at the last follow-up. The number of lymph nodes harvested was associated with the reduction of LR (chi-square(trend)=6.755, P=0.009), but was not associated with DR (chi-square(trend)=1.558, P=0.212). In the survival analysis, N stage (P=0.0251) and lymph node dissection (P=0.0073) had significant influence on LR, but not on DR or disease-specific survival. However, the number of lymph nodes harvested did not affect LR-free, DR-free, or disease-specific survival. We conclude that lymph node dissection may improve the control of locoregional cancer, as well as staging accuracy, in cN0 muscle-invasive UUT-TCC, but that it does not clearly influence survival.

Carcinoma of the renal pelvis and ureter

OBJECTIVE: To assess the occurrence of upper urinary tract urothelial tumors (UUTT) in Brazil. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed a clinical and histopathologic study of 33 patients who were diagnosed with a malignant neoplasm in the renal pelvis or ureter in the period of 1994 to 2004, in a single institution. RESULTS: Among the patients with upper urinary tract carcinoma, 70 percent were males and 30 percent females, with mean age of 65 ± 16 years (ranging from 31 to 91 years). Nineteen patients presented renal pelvis tumor (58 percent), 9 ureteral tumor (27 percent) and 5 synchronic pelvic and ureteral tumors (15 percent). Renal pelvis tumors represented 2.8 percent of all the urothelial neoplasms, and 11.4 percent of all renal neoplasms treated in the same period. Ureteral tumors represented 1.6 percent of all the urothelial malignancies surgically managed in these 11 years. Tobacco smoking was the most common risk factor, and analgesic abuse was not reported by those patients. Most carcinomas were high-grade and muscle-invasive. Mean time to diagnosis was 7 months, being hematuria the most common symptom. CONCLUSIONS: A high association was also found between UUTT and bladder urothelial carcinoma. UUTT were mostly seen in men in their seventies and related to a high overall and cancer-related mortality rate. The overall disease-specific survival was 40 percent, much lower than found in most of the reported series.