A French national epidemiologic survey on renal cell carcinoma. Oncology Committee of the Association Française d'Urologie.

Background: In this multicenter study, the yearly national evaluation of tumors of the kidney was out by the Oncology Committee of the French Association of Urology.

Methods: During the period from April 1, 1992, to March 31, 1994, 1486 patients from 54 centers were included in this study. For each patient, an individual chart was created, in which age, gender, discovery circumstances of the tumor, radiologic and biologic workup, treatment, TNM classification, and histologic features of the tumor were recorded.

Results: The mean patient age was 62.1 years, and the male-to-female ratio was 2:1. Forty percent of the tumors were discovered accidentally. A radical nephrectomy was performed in 93% of the cases, and in 7% of the cases, conservative management was adopted. Medical treatment was chosen in 5% of the cases. The patient distribution according to classification was as follows: pT1 = 8%, pT2 = 53%, pT3a = 21%, and pT3b = 18%. Lymph node involvement was observed in 9% and visceral metastasis in 6% of the cases. The incidental tumors were intracapsular in 80% of the cases. From the histologic point of view, the majority of the tumors were clear cell adenocarcinoma (66%). The mean tumor maximum dimension was 6.4 +/- 3.5 cm; it was significantly greater in symptomatic patients and patients with poor prognostic indicators (involvement of the adrenal gland, inferior vena cava, and/or lymph nodes and visceral metastasis). Adrenal gland involvement or inferior vena cava involvement were each observed in 4% of the cases. Fourteen percent of the patients had multicentric tumor spread, which was influenced by neither the tumor size nor the cell type. The nuclear grade was established in 66% of the cases and was significantly correlated with involvement of the perirenal fat and the lymph nodes.

Conclusions: This study allowed the authors to centralize one-fifth of all new cases of adenocarcinoma of the kidney in France in the course of a year. It enabled them to evaluate precisely the current epidemiologic profile of this disease among those patients.