Partial nephrectomy for T2 renal masses: contemporary trends and oncologic efficacy

Increasing popularity and improved technical feasibility of partial nephrectomy (PN) has encouraged urologists to treat larger renal masses with nephron-sparing surgery. We used a national database to characterize practice patterns for the surgical management of patients with T2 renal tumors and examined the effect of PN on cancer-specific survival in such patients.

Between 2001 and 2011, 10,259 patients with primary tumor size >7 cm confined to the kidney (T2) were treated surgically for kidney cancer. PN trends were examined using annual percentage change (APC). Multivariate survival models were developed to identify independent determinants of PN use and cancer-specific survival (CSS) following surgical treatment of kidney cancer.

Overall, 543 patients (5.29 %) were treated with PN versus 9716 (94.71 %) who underwent radical nephrectomy (RN). The use of PN increased progressively between 2001 and 2011 (APC +11.1 %, p < 0.05). Male gender, geographic location, year of diagnosis, and disease stage were independent determinants of increased PN use (all p values <0.05). Cancer-specific mortality was not inferior for patients treated with PN versus RN (HR 0.68, 95 % CI 0.50-0.94). Male gender, younger age, white race, tumor size >10 cm, localized disease, and papillary histology were all associated with improved CSS with PN (all p values <0.05).

PN is increasingly utilized to treat T2 renal masses. Our analysis demonstrates that PN for T2 renal masses has no contraindicated effect on CSS.