Comparison of Radical Nephrectomy and Partial Nephrectomy for T1 Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Meta-Analysis

To contrast the clinical effects and complications for the treatment of T1 renal carcinoma in partial nephrectomy (PN) and radical nephrectomy (RN).

Multiple databases were adopted to search relevant studies, and articles that eventually satisfied the inclusion criteria were included. All meta-analyses were conducted with the Review Manager 5.0, and to estimate the quality of each article, risk of bias table was performed.

In the end, 13 studies including 13,269 patients were involved, which eventually satisfied the eligibility criteria. The number of samples in the PN group and the RN group were 6,145 and 7,124 respectively. The results of heterogeneity test suggested that the operating time (mean difference [MD] = -13.02, 95% CI [-14.15 to -11.89], p < 0.00001; p for heterogeneity < 0.00001, I2 = 100%), glomerular filtration rate (GFR) at 24 h after surgery (MD = 11.28, 95% CI [10.71-11.85], p < 0.00001; p for heterogeneity < 0.000001, I2 = 98%), and recurrence (OR 0.99, 95% CI [0.51-1.93], p = 0.97; p for Heterogeneity = 0.73, I2 = 0%) were significantly different, while differences in GFR at 24 h before surgery (MD = 0.59, 95% CI [0.06-1.12], p = 0.03; p for heterogeneity < 0.000001, I2 = 76%) between PN and RN were insignificant.

This study demonstrated that clinical efficacy of RN was better than that of PN to some extent, but PN was a quicker recovery and less harmful therapy.