While radical nephroureterectomy (RNU) is the gold standard treatment for upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC), select patients may benefit from endoscopic treatment (ET). European Association of Urology guidelines recommend ET for patients with low-risk (LR) disease: unifocal, < 2 cm, low-grade lesions without local invasion. To inform the utility of ET, we compare the overall survival (OS) of patients receiving ET and RNU using current and previous guidelines of LR disease.
Patients with non-metastatic, cT1 or less UTUC diagnosed in 2004-2012 were collected from the National Cancer Database. OS was analyzed with inverse probability of treatment weighted Cox proportional hazard regression. Analyses were conducted for LR disease under updated (size < 2 cm) and previous guidelines (size < 1 cm).
Patients who were older, healthier, and treated at an academic facility had higher odds of receiving ET. In 851 identified patients with LR disease, RNU was associated with increased OS compared with ET (p = 0.006); however, there was no difference between ET and RNU (p = 0.79, n = 202) under the previous guidelines (size < 1 cm). In, otherwise, LR patients, the largest tumor size with no difference between ET and RNU was ≤ 1.5 cm (p = 0.07).
RNU is associated with improved survival when compared with ET in the management of LR UTUC using current guidelines with a size threshold of < 2 cm. In appropriately selected LR patients, we find no difference between RNU and ET up to a tumor size of ≤ 1.5 cm. However, in the absence of prospective studies, the usage of ET is best left up to clinician discretion.
World journal of urology. 2018 Sep 28 [Epub ahead of print]
Alexander Upfill-Brown, Andrew T Lenis, Izak Faiena, Amirali H Salmasi, David C Johnson, Aydin Pooli, Alexandra Drakaki, Kiran Gollapudi, Jeremy Blumberg, Allan J Pantuck, Karim Chamie
Department of Urology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA., Division of Urology, Department of Surgery, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA, USA., Department of Urology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA. .