Prediction of progression after radical nephrectomy for patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma

The objective of the current study was to develop an algorithm to predict progression to metastases after radical nephrectomy for patients with clinically localized renal cell carcinoma (RCC) to allow stratification of patients for potential adjuvant therapy trials.

The authors identified 1671 sporadic patients with clinically localized, unilateral clear cell RCC who underwent radical nephrectomy between 1970 and 2000. The clinical features examined included age, gender, smoking history, recent onset hypertension, performance status, and presenting symptoms. The pathologic features examined included surgical margins, tumor stage, regional lymph node status, tumor size, nuclear grade, histologic tumor necrosis, sarcomatoid component, cystic architecture, and multifocality. Metastases free survival was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. A multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression model was fit to determine associations between the clinical and pathologic features and distant metastases.