Dissecting Outcomes: Should Cytoreductive Nephrectomy Be Performed for Patients With Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma With Sarcomatoid Dedifferentiation?

Background: It is highly contested whether cytoreductive nephrectomy for treating advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) with sarcomatoid features (sRCC) benefits overall survival. Patients with sRCC are known to have a poor prognosis, and these tumors have a more aggressive biology than those without sarcomatoid features.

Methods: Patients with clear cell RCC or non-clear cell RCC underwent cytoreductive nephrectomy in efforts to improve overall survival (OS). Patients were stratified by presence or absence of histologic sarcomatoid features within tumor samples.

Results: Of 167 patients who underwent cytoreductive nephrectomy, 127 had clear cell RCC, of whom 14 had sarcomatoid features, and 40 had non-clear cell RCC, of whom 13 had sarcomatoid features. Median age of the cohort was 62 years (range, 56.5-69 years). The cohort included 119 male (71.3%) and 48 (28.7%) female patients. Among all patients with advanced RCC, having sRCC had a significantly worse OS after cytoreductive nephrectomy (30 vs 8 months; hazard ratio [HR], 2.88; <0.0001). Additionally, favorable-risk patients had significantly longer OS compared to intermediate- or poor-risk patients (56 vs 30 vs 10 months; HR, 0.21; =0.00016). For patients with clear cell RCC, having sRCC conferred a significantly poorer survival (30 vs 9 months; HR, 2.82; =0.0035). Patients with non-clear cell sRCC also had significantly worse outcomes compared to patients whose tumors did not have sarcomatoid features (30 vs 6.5 months; HR, 3; =0.009). When patients with sRCC were stratified by whether there was >10% or ≤10% sarcomatoid features present within the sample, there was no significant difference in OS (8 vs 8.5 months; =0.32).

Conclusions: Sarcomatoid features within tumor histology confer significantly poor prognosis. Patients with sRCC, regardless of clear cell vs non-clear cell histology, have significantly shorter OS. Even among patients with 10% or less sarcomatoid features, there was no OS benefit to cytoreductive nephrectomy. Based on our findings, there appears to be a limited to no role of cytoreductive nephrectomy if sRCC is identified on pretreatment biopsy. The role of radiomics and pre-operative biopsies may confer significant benefit in this patient population.