[How radical nephrectomy compares to partial nephrectomy for the treatment of pT1a papillary renal cell carcinomas?].

Purpose: Our objective was to compare oncologic results of nephron sparing surgery (NSS) versus radical nephrectomy (RN) in T1aN0-x M0 papillary renal cell carcinoma (PRCC).

Patients And Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 277 patients treated for a pT1aN0M0 PRCC selected from an academic database from 12 centres. We compared the clinico-pathological features by using Chi-square and Student statistical analyses. Survivals analyses using Kaplan-Meier and Log-rank models were performed.

Results: The two groups were composed by 186 patients treated by NSS and 91 by RN. The TNM stage was fixed and the two groups were, in terms of age and Fuhrman grade, comparable. Median age at diagnosis was 59 years (27-85). Median tumor size was 2.7 cm (0.4-4). The average follow-up was 49 months (1-246). Very few events arose in both groups: two local recurrences were observed in the NSS group (1.07%), three patients died of cancer in the NSS treated group (1.6%) and five in the RN treated group (5.5%). The five and 10 cancer-specific survival rate were comparable in the two groups (98% vs. 100% and 98% vs. 97%). The specific survival curves were perfectly similar for both groups (log rank test, p=0.25).

Conclusion: NSS is equivalent to RN as far as oncologic control of pT1aN0M0 PRCC is concerned.