Clinicopathological features of recurrence after radical surgery for nonmetastatic renal cell carcinoma

The objective of this study was to clarify the clinicopathological features of recurrent renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in patients who had undergone curative surgical resection of primary disease.

The study included 171 patients treated by radical surgery for nonmetastatic RCC in our institution. Several clinicopathological factors were analyzed to determine differences between patients with and without disease recurrence. We further investigated predictive factors for disease recurrence, as well as prognostic factors after disease recurrence, using univariate and multivariate analyses.

Thirty-four of the 171 patients (19.9%) developed recurrence, and the median time from surgery to recurrence was 11 months (range, 1 to 146 months). The incidence of disease recurrence was significantly associated with sex, mode of detection, tumor size, pathological stage, tumor grade, and microvascular invasion (MVI). Univariate analysis showed that five factors--mode of detection, tumor size, pathological stage, tumor grade, and MVI--were found to be significant risk factors for recurrence after surgery, while only the pathological stage was an independent predictor of recurrence by multivariate analysis. After disease recurrence, the 1-, 3-, and 5-year cancer-specific survival rates were 66.3%, 45.9%, and 13.4%, respectively. Despite the absence of independent prognostic predictors after recurrence, recurrence more than 1 year after surgery and complete resection of recurrent lesions were shown to be significant prognostic factors by univariate analysis.

These findings suggest that careful follow-up should be performed for patients showing a high pathological stage after radical surgery for nonmetastatic RCC, because of the higher probability of disease recurrence, and that after recurrence, intensive treatment should be considered, particularly for patients with unresectable recurrent disease occurring within 1 year after initial radical surgery.