Contemporary lymphadenectomy templates: kidney, prostate and bladder cancer

Lymph node dissection (LDN) at the time of a primary malignant resection varies in therapeutic and staging outcomes between organs of origin. The purpose of our review is to provide new updates and a key summary on the developments in lymphadenectomy templates in kidney, prostate and bladder cancer.

There are still evolving definitions for LDN templates, means of pathologic diagnosis of lymph nodes, as well as implications on staging/cancer-free survival after LND though trends are still emerging.

Routine lymphadenectomy does not appear to yield benefit in kidney cancer but maybe helpful in those with grossly identifiable disease. For high-risk prostate cancer as well as bladder cancer, extended lymphadenectomy with resection of external and internal iliac and obturator nodes as well as some common iliac nodes can yield survival benefit.