Survival after Lung Metastasectomy from Urothelial Carcinoma: A Multi-Institutional Database Study

The efficacy of lung metastasectomy in patients with urothelial carcinoma remains inconclusive, as there is only limited evidence from small studies. In this study, we aimed to assess the prognostic outcomes of excising pulmonary metastases from urothelial carcinoma.

In this study, we utilized data from the Metastatic Lung Tumor Study Group of Japan database, a multi-institutional prospective database of pulmonary metastasectomies. We examined the data of patients who had undergone pulmonary metastasectomy for urothelial carcinoma between 1985 and 2021. Exclusion criteria included insufficient clinical information and follow-up of <3 months.

The study cohort comprised 100 patients (63 bladder cancer, 37 renal pelvic and ureteral cancer), with a median follow-up of 34 months. There were 70 male and 30 female patients of average age 66.5 ± 10.4 years at lung metastasectomy. The median interval from treatment of the primary lesion to metastasectomy was 19 months and the maximum tumor diameter was 21 ± 15 mm. Three- and five-year overall survival rates were 69% and 59%, respectively. Three- and five-year disease-free survival rates were 56% and 46%, respectively. Multivariate analysis identified larger tumor diameter (hazard ratio: 1.62, 95% confidence interval: 1.21-2.17) and distant metastases at the time of treatment of the primary cancer (hazard ratio: 4.23; 95% confidence interval: 1.54-11.6) as significant adverse prognostic factors for overall survival.

To our knowledge, this is the largest published case series of pulmonary resection for metastatic urothelial carcinoma, providing benchmark data for the assessment of long-term outcomes of this rare entity.