Prognostic value of lymphovascular invasion for patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma after radical nephroureterectomy / 中华泌尿外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the prognostic significance of the lymphovascular invasion (LVI) in patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) after radical nephmureterectomy (RNU).Methods A retrospective review was performed on 812 patients who underwent radical nephroureterectomy for UTUC in our hospital from January 1998 to March 2016.Among all the patients,534 were male and 278 female,with median age 67 years old (ranged 25 to 89 years).Three hundred and three patients had hypertension and 119 patients had diabetes.Hydronephrosis was present in 393 patients.445 patients had tumor in left side and the remaining 367 in right side.The tumor was located in the renal pelvis in 422 patients and was ureteric in 319 patients and multifocal in 71 patients.Low pathological grade and high pathological grade was diagnosed in 239 and 573,respectively.The x2 test was used to detect the association between lymphovascular invasion (LVI) and several clinicopathological features.Kaplan-Meier method with the log-rank test was used to assess overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS).Multivariate analysis was conducted using Cox proportional-hazards regression model.Results There were 396 cases with pathological stage Tis +Ta +T1,135 cases T2,257 cases T3 and 24 cases T4.Of all patients,52 had lymph node metastasis.The median follow-up time was 41 months (ranged 2 to 206 months).Of all 812 patients included,110 patients (13.5％) had LVI,while 702 patients (86.5％) were LV1 negative.The 5-year OS and CSS was 44.8％ and 48.9％ for LVI positive group while 70.1％ and 76.0％ for LVI negative group (P ＜ 0.001).Furthermore,there were statistically significant differences between LVI positive group and LVI negative group in hydronephrosis,tumor grade,tumor stage,muscle invasion and lymph node metastasis (P＜0.05).Cox regression showed LVI,advanced age (≥65 year),higher tumor grade,advanced tumor stage (≥ pT2),lymph node metastasis and multifocal tumor were significant prognostic factors in patients with UTUC after RUN.Conclusion UTUC may have a poor prognosis and LVI could be an independent predictor of both OS and CSS.