The authors investigated 1,335 patients with kidney cancer who had undergone radical nephrectomy of nephron-sparing surgery in a retrospective manner. On a multivariate analysis, the hazard ratios (HR) for cancer-specific survival (CSS) for pT2a and pT2b tumors were not statistically significant different. This was also seen for the different subtypes of T3 tumors. The authors concluded that the new TNM classification is a useful tool to predict CSS but not within tumor stages T2 and T3.
While I do not see an advantage from subclassification within T2 tumors – at least because organ-confined tumors with a diameter >10 cm are rare – changes within the T3 stage (T3a now defined as infiltration of the peri-renal fat as well as renal vein(s) and involvement of the adrenal gland now defined as T4) seem to make sense.
Presented by Marco Roscigno, MD, et al. at the 26th Annual European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress - March 18 - 21, 2011 - Austria Centre Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Reported for UroToday by Christian Doehn, MD, PhD, Department of Urology, University of Lübeck Medical School, Lübeck Germany.
View EAU 2011 Annual Meeting Coverage
