Given the growing body of evidence supporting the benefit of primary tumor control for a wide range of metastatic malignancies, we hypothesized that chemotherapy plus radical nephroureterectomy (RNU) is associated with an overall survival (OS) benefit compared to chemotherapy alone for metastatic upper tract urothelial carcinoma (mUTUC). Within the National Cancer Data Base (2004-2012), we identified 398 (38.4%) and 637 (61.6%) patients who received chemotherapy plus RNU and chemotherapy alone, respectively. Inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW)-adjusted Kaplan-Meier curves showed that 3-yr OS was 16.2% (95% confidence interval [CI] 12.1-20.3) for chemotherapy plus RNU and 6.4% (95%CI 4.1-8.7) for chemotherapy alone (p<0.001). In IPTW-adjusted Cox regression analysis, chemotherapy plus RNU was associated with a significant OS benefit (hazard ratio 0.70, 95% CI 0.61-0.80; p<0.001). Despite the usual biases related to the observational study design, our findings show a net OS benefit for fit patients who received chemotherapy plus RNU for mUTUC relative to their counterparts treated with chemotherapy alone.
We examined the role of radical nephroureterectomy in addition to systemic chemotherapy for metastatic upper tract urothelial carcinoma. We found that such treatment may be associated with an overall survival benefit compared to chemotherapy alone in fit patients.
European urology. 2016 Jan 29 [Epub ahead of print]
Thomas Seisen, Tarun Jindal, Patrick Karabon, Akshay Sood, Joaquim Bellmunt, Morgan Rouprêt, Jeffrey J Leow, Malte W Vetterlein, Maxine Sun, Shaheen Alanee, Toni K Choueiri, Quoc-Dien Trinh, Mani Menon, Firas Abdollah
Center for Outcomes Research, Analytics and Evaluation, Vattikuti Urology Institute, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI, USA., Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA., Department of Urology, Pitié Salpétrière Hospital, Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Paris, Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris, France., Division of Urological Surgery and Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA., Center for Outcomes Research, Analytics and Evaluation, Vattikuti Urology Institute, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI, USA. Electronic address: .