Clinical and pathological features predictive of nephrectomy at post-chemotherapy retroperitoneal lymph node dissection.

Purpose: We determined the clinical and pathological features associated with nephrectomy at post-chemotherapy retroperitoneal lymph node dissection.

Materials And Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the testis cancer database from 1980 to 2007 to identify all patients treated with post-chemotherapy retroperitoneal lymph node dissection. Patients with pure seminoma and nongerm cell histology were excluded from study. A total of 1,807 patients were identified, of whom 17 without recorded mass size were excluded from further study. Pathological and clinical variables were assessed by bivariate analysis. Multivariate logistic regression was used to determine predictors of nephrectomy at post-chemotherapy retroperitoneal lymph node dissection.

Results: The overall incidence of nephrectomy at post-chemotherapy retroperitoneal lymph node dissection was 14.8% (265 of 1,790 cases). The incidence of nephrectomy was 17.0%, 18.9%, 13.6% and 8.0% in 1980 to 1988 (group 1), 1989 to 1997 (group 2), 1998 to 2002 (group 3) and 2002 to 2007 (group 4) (p = 0.0001). The nephrectomy rate for tumors less than 2, 2 to 5, 5 to 10 and greater than 10 cm was 6.0%, 5.8%, 13.9% and 31.9%, respectively (p = 0.0001). The incidence of nephrectomy based on retroperitoneal histology was 10.3% for fibrosis, 14.5% for teratoma and 20.4% for cancer (p = 0.0001). The strongest predictor of nephrectomy at post-chemotherapy retroperitoneal lymph node dissection was retroperitoneal mass size greater than 10 cm (OR 9.30, 95% CI 3.8-22.7).

Conclusions: The incidence of nephrectomy at post-chemotherapy retroperitoneal lymph node dissection has decreased in the last 3 decades. A higher incidence was observed in patients with larger volume tumors, those who received salvage chemotherapy, those with a left primary testicular tumor and those with increased markers at post-chemotherapy surgery.