Surgery for metastases of renal cell carcinoma

The role of surgery for RCC in the era of emerging effective systemic therapy (usually immunotherapy) is not yet defined except for solitary metastasis. The retrospective analysis of patients subjected to aggressive surgical management after systemic therapy reinforces the need to find better therapeutic modalities in order to achieve complete eradication of metastatic disease. In the meantime, however, we propose these guidelines. First, we would encourage aggressive surgical resection of the clinically solitary metastasis, whether synchronous or metachronous. Continue to follow those patients indefinitely, because relapse is quite likely, but do not give adjuvant systemic therapy unless on protocol. Second, limited metastases in only one organ may behave similarly to a solitary metastasis, and if the metastases are in a site amenable to surgical resection, e.g., lung, initial surgery might be reasonable. Systemic therapy for these patients is highly recommended and need not necessarily wait for recurrence. Third, for patients with multiple metastases, initial systemic therapy followed then by resection of any residual disease in selected patients seems to be supported by the experience at several medical centers. Apparently prolonged survival times have been observed after systemic therapy followed by surgery in highly selected patients, despite finding viable cancer in the overwhelming majority of specimens. One must be mindful of the morbidity of an attempt to remove all known disease, however, and try to weigh this against potential benefit. Only a prospective, randomized trial could ever confirm the value of an aggressive surgical approach to metastatic RCC. In the meantime, however, metastasectomy offers, at the very least, the opportunity to confirm the histologic response to systemic therapy, render some patients disease-free, and possibly promote long-term survival in selected patients.