Survival benefit with extended lymphadenectomy for advanced renal malignancy: A population-based analysis

We used population-based data to examine the possible benefit of extended lymphadenectomy for patients with renal malignancy in the setting of more advanced disease.

The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database was utilized to identify non-metastatic, T3-T4 renal cancer patients from 2004-2015 treated with removal of ≥1 lymph node at the time of nephrectomy. Non-parametric bivariate statistics were used to assess associations between covariates of interest and extended lymphadenectomy (≥10 lymph nodes removed). Cancer-specific survival (CSS) and overall survival (OS) benefit was evaluated using Kaplan-Meier analysis.

Of the 4397 patients identified, 816 (18.6%) underwent extended lymphadenectomy. For patients with T3a disease, 5-year CSS and OS benefit with extended lymphadenectomy did not reach statistical significance (CSS: hazard ratio [HR] 0.98, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.77-1.24; OS: HR 0.96, 95% CI 0.77-1.20). Conversely, for those with T3b-T3c disease, extended lymphadenectomy led to statistically significant improvements in both 5-year CSS and OS compared to non-extended lymphadenectomy (CSS: HR 0.78, 95% CI 0.61-0.99; OS: HR 0.72, 95% CI 0.58-0.90). Finally, for those with T4 disease, use of extended lymphadenectomy had OS benefit after 5 years (OS: HR 0.51, HR 0.29-0.90, p = 0.02).

Based on population-level data, extended lymphadenectomy was associated with improved survival in select patients with advanced renal malignancy treated with surgical nephrectomy. Understanding the basis of these real-world findings in the face of conflicting randomized trial results will be key, moving forward.