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Staging of renal cell carcinoma

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Abstract

As in other malignant tumors, prognosis in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) depends on tumor extent and metastasis at the time of primary diagnosis. Staging systems formalize the way in which the extent of RCC is being described and classified. Primary staging of RCC aims at evaluating surgical options. Since surgical excision, which is the mainstay of therapy in non-metastatic RCC, and, recently, minimally invasive ablation methods have evolved significantly over the last decades, staging systems continue to evolve along the way. The 40-year-old Robson classification has been replaced with the TNM classification of RCC, because the latter adapts more easily to changing patterns of diagnosis and therapy. Modern cross-sectional imaging methods, such as multidetector-row computed tomography (MDCT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), perform highly in T-staging of local tumor extent and M-staging of distant metastasis. However, both MDCT and MRI perform poorly in N-staging of lymphadenopathy. At present, 18-F-desoxy-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) appears to be unreliable in the detection of RCC and its metastasis. This overview of current radiological and surgical literature attempts to describe how modern staging systems for RCC are organized, and which radiological and surgical developments currently influence the way in which primary staging and prognosis of RCC depend on one another.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Radiology, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Ziemssenstrasse 1, 80336, München, Germany

    Ullrich G. Mueller-Lisse, Thomas Meindl, Eva Coppenrath, Christoph Degenhart, Anno Graser, Michael Scherr & Maximilian F. Reiser

  2. Department of Urology, University of Munich, München, Germany

    Ulrike L. Mueller-Lisse

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  1. Ullrich G. Mueller-Lisse
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  2. Ulrike L. Mueller-Lisse
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  3. Thomas Meindl
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Correspondence to Ullrich G. Mueller-Lisse.

Additional information

This paper is based upon the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) 2006 categorical course CC 1216, Primary Tumor Staging (4): Urological Cancers, A. Kidney.

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Mueller-Lisse, U.G., Mueller-Lisse, U.L., Meindl, T. et al. Staging of renal cell carcinoma. Eur Radiol 17, 2268–2277 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-006-0554-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-006-0554-1

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