Publications by authors named "Teele Kuusk"

In locally advanced RCC, 6 phase 3 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were designed in the perioperative setting with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) monotherapy or combinations. Adjuvant trials with atezolizumab, pembrolizumab, and nivolumab with ipilimumab reported results, as did the only perioperative trial with nivolumab. Of these, only 1 year of adjuvant pembrolizumab improved disease-free survival (DFS) versus placebo, with the other trials showing no improvement in DFS.

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Background: Retrospective comparative studies suggest a survival benefit after complete local treatment of recurrence (LTR) in renal cell carcinoma (RCC), which may be largely due to an indication bias.

Objective: To determine the role of LTR in a homogeneous population characterised by limited and potentially resectable recurrence.

Design Setting And Participants: RECUR is a protocol-based multicentre European registry capturing patient and tumour characteristics, risk of recurrence (RoR), recurrence patterns, and survival of those curatively treated for nonmetastatic RCC from 2006 to 2011.

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In KEYNOTE-564, adjuvant pembrolizumab, a PD-1 antibody, significantly improved disease-free survival (DFS) in localised clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) with a high risk of relapse. In 2021, the European Association of Urology RCC Guidelines Panel issued a weak recommendation for adjuvant pembrolizumab for high-risk ccRCC as defined by the trial until final overall survival data and results from other trials were available. Meanwhile, the primary DFS endpoints were not met for adjuvant atezolizumab (PD-L1 inhibitor; IMmotion010), adjuvant nivolumab plus ipilimumab (CheckMate 914), or perioperative nivolumab (PROSPER).

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The fifth edition of the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of urogenital tumours published in 2022 will be implemented in the European Association of Urology guidelines on renal cell carcinoma for 2023. Here we provide an update summarising changes in the new WHO classification of renal tumours from a clinician perspective.

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Over the past decade, only minor changes have been introduced in the TNM staging system for renal cancer. Conversely, many milestones and modifications in management of the disease have been achieved, especially for patients with locally advanced and metastatic cancers. The European Association of Urology guidelines panel proposes a new TNM classification scheme for staging of renal cell carcinoma to reflect these breakthrough clinical improvements.

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Objectives: Objective of this study is to report the results of nurse led hematuria clinic service outcome of 2,714 patients.

Subjects And Methods: We conducted a retrospective, single center review of 2714 patients with visible and nonvisible hematuria managed by a well-trained nurse specialist in a rapid access clinic (RAC) between 2014 and 2020. All patients received a full review, flexible cystoscopy performed by a nurse, and ultrasound of urinary tracts.

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Context: The current impact of haematuria investigations on health care organisations is significant. There is currently no consensus on how to investigate patients with haematuria.

Objective: To evaluate the incidence of bladder cancer, upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC), and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) among patients undergoing investigation for haematuria and identify any risk factors for bladder cancer, UTUC, and RCC (BUR).

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Context: The European Association of Urology (EAU) Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) Guideline Panel has prepared evidence-based guidelines and recommendations for the management of RCC.

Objective: To present a summary of the 2022 RCC guideline, which is based on a standardised methodology including systematic reviews (SRs) and provides transparent and reliable evidence for the management of RCC.

Evidence Acquisition: For the 2022 update, a new literature search was carried out with a cutoff date of May 28, 2021, covering the Medline, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases.

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Unlabelled: Following CARMENA and SURTIME, patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) and International Metastatic RCC Database Consortium (IMDC) intermediate and poor risk receive systemic therapy with the primary tumour (primary) in place, with the option of deferred cytoreductive nephrectomy (CN) in responding patients. We retrospectively analysed the safety and efficacy of first-line nivolumab/ipilimumab in 71 primary mRCC patients (42.3% IMDC poor risk; 43.

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Adjuvant treatment of nonmetastatic high-risk renal cell carcinoma is an unmet medical need. In the past, several tyrosine kinase inhibitor trials have failed to demonstrate an improvement of disease-free survival (DFS) in this setting. Only one trial (S-TRAC) provided evidence for improved DFS with sunitinib but without an overall survival (OS) signal.

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To assess the impact of body mass index (BMI) on peri-operative outcomes of kidney and upper tract robot-assisted surgery. Medical audit of patients who underwent robot-assisted kidney and upper tract cancer surgery at a single institution between 2017 and 2019, categorized on BMI into obese patients with a BMI ≥ 30 kg/m and a control group with BMI < 25 kg/m. Patient and tumour characteristics, surgery time, intraoperative blood loss, intraoperative adverse events (AE) according to the European Association of Urology Intraoperative Adverse Incidents Classification (EAUiaiC), conversion- to-open/radical rate as well as 30-day postoperative AE according to Clavien-Dindo (CD) and length of inpatient stay were analyzed.

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The recent randomized controlled phase III CLEAR trial results are the last to complement immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI)-based doublet combination therapies for treatment-naïve metastatic clear-cell renal cell carcinoma. The CLEAR trial demonstrated an improved progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and an objective response rate (ORR) benefit for the combination of lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab over sunitinib. The CheckMate-9ER trial update demonstrated an ongoing PFS, OS, and quality-of-life benefit for cabozantinib plus nivolumab over sunitinib as did the update of Keynote-426 for axitinib plus pembrolizumab in the intention-to-treat population, with a PFS benefit seen across all International Metastatic Database Consortium (IMDC) subgroups.

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Objective: To analyse the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a centralized specialist kidney cancer care pathway.

Materials And Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of patient and pathway characteristics including prioritization strategies at the Specialist Centre for Kidney Cancer located at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust (RFH) before and during the surge of COVID-19.

Results: On 18 March 2020 all elective surgery was halted at RFH to redeploy resources and staff for the COVID-19 surge.

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Purpose Of Review: Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) combination therapy has revolutionized therapy of metastatic renal cancer. The success of immunotherapy has renewed an interest to study these agents in adjuvant and neoadjuvant settings and prior to cytoreductive nephrectomy. This narrative review will give an overview of ongoing trials and early translational research outcomes.

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Purpose: There is sparse evidence on outcomes of resected occult LN metastases at the time of nephrectomy (synchronous disease). We sought to analyse a large international cohort of patients and to identify clinico-pathological predictors of long-term survival.

Materials And Methods: We collected data of consecutive patients who underwent nephrectomy and LND for T cN0-1pN1 and cM0-1 RCC at 7 referral centres between 1988 and 2019.

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Purpose: Radiomics is a specific field of medical research that uses programmable recognition tools to extract objective information from standard images to combine with clinical data, with the aim of improving diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive accuracy beyond standard visual interpretation. We performed a narrative review of radiomic applications that may support improved characterization of small renal masses (SRM). The main focus of the review was to identify and discuss methods which may accurately differentiate benign from malignant renal masses, specifically between renal cell carcinoma (RCC) subtypes and from angiomyolipoma without visible fat (fat-poor AML) and oncocytoma.

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Longer follow-up and new trial data from phase 3 randomised controlled trials investigating immune checkpoint blockade (PD-1 or its ligand PD-L1) in advanced clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC) have recently become available. The CheckMate 9ER trial demonstrated an improved progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) benefit for the combination of cabozantinib plus nivolumab. A Keynote-426 update demonstrated an ongoing OS benefit for pembrolizumab plus axitinib in the intention-to-treat population, with a PFS benefit seen across all International Metastatic Database Consortium (IMDC) subgroups, while an update of CheckMate 214 confirmed the long-term benefit of ipilimumab plus nivolumab in IMDC intermediate and poor risk patients.

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The European Association of Urology (EAU) Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) Guideline Panel performed a protocol-driven systematic review (SR) on thermal ablation (TA) compared with partial nephrectomy (PN) for T1N0M0 renal masses, in order to provide evidence to support its recommendations. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed, and only comparative studies published between 2000 and 2019 were included. Twenty-six nonrandomised comparative studies were included, recruiting a total of 167 80 patients.

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Introduction And Objective: Adjuvant studies with checkpoint inhibitors have attracted new interest in accurate pathological lymph node (LN) staging in renal cell carcinoma. Sentinel lymph node (SN) studies in cN0 patients revealed the pattern of lymphatic radiotracer drainage from renal tumors. The aim of this study was to describe the location of single- or oligometastatic LN and analyze if the topography of these first landing sites matches the drainage pattern observed in SN studies of renal tumors.

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