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Updated: Oct 1, 2025

In Vivo, Percutaneous, Needle Based, Optical Coherence Tomography of Renal Masses
Published on: March 30, 2015
Clinicopathological features of non-conventional renal cell carcinoma histological subtypes: Learning points from a
Ee Jean Lim1, Khi Yung Fong2, Jingqiu Li1
1Department of Urology, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore.
Purpose:
To perform a retrospective review of the clinicopathological features of patients with conventional and non-conventional renal cell carcinoma (cRCC and ncRCC).
Materials And Methods:
A large prospectively maintained uro-oncological registry was accessed to extract clinicopathological data of patients diagnosed with renal tumors who subsequently underwent nephrectomy from 1990-2019. Demographics and operative parameters were extracted. Analyses of overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) were performed using the Kaplan-Meier method. Cox proportional-hazards analysis was used to identify risk factors which influenced survival.
Results:
There were a total of 1,686 consecutive nephrectomies which was retrieved, with 1,286 cRCC and 400 ncRCC. The commonest ncRCC subtypes were papillary (n=198, 11.7%), clear cell papillary (n=50, 3.0%) and chromophobe (n=49, 2.9%) RCC. Kaplan-Meier estimates of OS were higher in cRCC (0.74; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.71-0.78) than ncRCC (hazard ratio, 1.47; 95% CI, 1.16-1.87). Among individual subtypes, chromophobe RCC had the highest 5-year OS (0.90; 95% CI, 0.79-1.0). Among ncRCC subtypes, acquired cystic RCC demonstrated the highest association with end-stage renal failure and hypertension, with the highest CSS. MiT family translocation RCC had the youngest mean age at presentation (45.6±12.8 y) and excellent CSS. Factors associated with increased OS in the entire cohort included shorter operative time, partial nephrectomy and lower tumor stages.
Conclusions:
This study provides a comprehensive contemporary overview of ncRCCs which are yet poorly characterized, in comparison to cRCCs. Data from this study would contribute towards tailored patient counseling and healthcare resource planning.

