Oncological outcomes of minimally invasive partial versus minimally invasive radical nephrectomy for cT1-2/N0/M0 clear cell renal cell carcinoma: a propensity score-matched analysis

Purpose: To compare the oncologic outcomes of partial nephrectomy (PN) and radical nephrectomy (RN) for cT1-2/N0 renal tumors and pathologically confirmed pT1-pT3a-pNx clear cell (cc)-renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Few studies compared the oncologic outcomes of PN and RN for renal tumors >7 cm. Methods: A prospective “renal cancer” database was queried for cT<3-cN0-cM0 and pT1a-pT3a-pNx cc-RCC. Out of 1650 cases treated between 2001 and 2013, 921 were cc-RCC and 666 met inclusion criteria, 232 of which treated with minimally invasive RN and 434 with MIPN. A 1:1 propensity score-matched (PSM) analysis was employed to minimize the selection bias of non-random assignment of patients to PN as opposed to RN. Kaplan–Meier method was used to compare the oncologic outcomes of the PSM cohorts. Survival rates were computed at 2, 5, and 10 years after surgery, and the log-rank test was applied to assess statistical significance between the two PSM groups. Results: RN tumors were significantly larger (p < 0.001), with higher pT stages (p < 0.001), higher Fuhrman grades (p = 0.002) and a more frequent sarcomatoid differentiation (p = 0.04). After applying the PSM analysis, the two cohorts of 155 RN and 155 PN cases did not differ for all clinical and pathologic covariates (all p ≥ 0.32). PN and RN cohorts displayed comparable 5-year metastasis-free survival (88.9 vs 89.9 %, p = 0.811), local recurrence-free survival (94.2 vs 95.9 %, p = 0.283), overall survival (94.5 vs 96.8 %, p = 0.419) and cancer-specific survival (96 vs 98.6 %, p = 0.907) rates. Conclusions: PN and RN for patients with cc-RCC larger than 7 cm provided equivalent oncologic outcomes. Safety and reproducibility of our findings should be further investigated in larger multicentric cohorts.