Prognostic Factors and Cancer-Specific Survival of Surgically Managed Renal Cell Carcinoma With Venous Thrombus: A 30-Year Experience at a Tertiary Referral Center

Abstract

Purpose: This study investigated the prognostic factors and cancer-specific survival (CSS) of patients who had renal cell carcinoma (RCC) with venous thrombus and underwent radical nephrectomy with thrombectomy (RNTx).Materials and Methods: From January 1990 to December 2022, we retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients diagnosed with RCC with venous thrombus who underwent RNTx at a single tertiary medical center. Univariate and multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression analyses were conducted to identify significant prognostic factors affecting CSS. A Kaplan-Meier model was used to calculate CSS rates at 1, 3, and 5 years after RNTx.Results: We included 262 patients in the final analysis (median age, 59 years) with a median follow-up of 28 months. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year CSS rates were 84.1%, 62.5%, and 46.4%, respectively. Multivariable analysis revealed that pathologic T4 stage (hazard ratio [HR], 3.711; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.599–8.611, p=0.002), pathologic N1 stage (HR, 2.371; 95% CI, 1.231–4.567; p=0.01), sarcomatoid differentiation (HR, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.027–3.477; p=0.041), and tumor necrosis (HR, 2.993; 95% CI, 1.132–7.914; p=0.027) were associated with CSS.Conclusions: Approximately one-third of all RCC patients with venous thrombus remained disease-free, and half survived 5 years after RNTx. Sarcomatoid differentiation and the presence of tumor necrosis in pathology predicted poorer CSS outcomes in our study. Further retrospective studies are required to validate these findings.