Purpose: Nodal disease in the setting of metastatic renal cell carcinoma is associated with poor prognosis. However, to our knowledge the biology of nodal metastases in the absence of metastatic disease is unknown. We reviewed our experience with treating this subset of patients with aggressive surgical resection.
Materials and methods: A total of 2,643 patients underwent nephrectomy at our institution between 1993 and 2003, including 40 with positive lymph nodes but no systemic metastases. All 40 patients underwent nephrectomy with extended retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy and they are the subjects of this study. Pathological characteristics and clinical outcomes were assessed.
Results: Median patient age was 58 years and 62% of the patients were male. Median tumor size was 11 cm. Local stage was T1 in 3% of cases, T2 in 17%, T3a in 30%, T3b in 47% and T4 in 3%. Perinephric fat invasion was present in 77% of patients and positive margins were identified in 17%. Nodal status was N1 in 30% of patients and N2 in 70%, including 10 with masses of matted nodes. Histology was conventional in 63% of cases and papillary in 17%. The remaining 20% of patients had sarcomatoid dedifferentiation. Excluding the 10 patients with matted nodes the median number of nodes harvested per patient was 7 with a median of 2 that were positive. Extranodal extension was present in 70% of cases, while in 70% disease recurred at a median of 4.9 months. Median actuarial disease specific survival was 20.3 months. At a median followup of 17.7 months 30% of patients had no evidence of disease, 8% had disease and 62% had died. On multivariate analysis more than 1 positive node was predictive of decreased recurrence-free survival (HR 2.83, 95% CI 1.06 to 7.61, p = 0.039) and overall survival (HR 9.33, 95% CI 1.85 to 47.09, p = 0.007).
Conclusions: Nodal metastasis with renal cell carcinoma is an independent predictor of prognosis in patients with M0 disease. Even in the absence of distant metastatic disease patients with positive nodes should be targeted for aggressive surgical resection, followed by clinical trials of adjuvant therapy to improve the outcome.