Impact of lymph node invasion and sarcomatoid differentiation on the survival of patients with locally advanced renal cell carcinoma.

Introduction: The application of current prognosticators in locally advanced nonmetastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is controversial. We analyzed the impact of clinical and pathological variables on the survival of this subset of patients.

Patients And Methods: We studied patients with RCC in stages III and IV without metastases, treated surgically between 1980 and 2009. We calculated disease-free (DFS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS), and the relation of clinical and pathological variables with these end-points.

Results: We identified 126 patients with locally advanced RCC; 8.7% had sarcomatoid differentiation. Tumor stage was pT3a in 48% and pT3b in 42%; 11.9% had lymph node invasion (N+). Patients with N- and N+ had a 10-year DFS of 49.0 and 23.4%, respectively (p = 0.0001). In multivariate analysis N+ (p = 0.0002) was the strongest predictor of DFS. The 10-year CSS of patients without sarcomatoid differentiation was 53.1% while those with sarcomatoid differentiation did not reach the median time to death (p < 0.0001). In multivariate analysis, sarcomatoid differentiation (p = 0.01) was the strongest predictor of CSS.

Conclusions: Locally advanced RCC portends poor prognosis. Preoperatively, weight loss and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status are predictors of recurrence and mortality, respectively. However, the most powerful predictors of DFS and CSS in our cohort were lymph node status and sarcomatoid differentiation.