Special issue The advance of solid tumor research in China: Presurgical therapy in the management of local retroperitoneal recurrence of renal cell carcinoma after radical nephrectomy

Local retroperitoneal recurrence (RPR) after radical nephrectomy (RN) is rare in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC); however, it is associated with poor prognosis and lacks standard treatment. Our study aimed to assess oncological outcomes and prognostic factors of patients that underwent targeted therapy for RPR after RN, and to evaluate the role of presurgical targeted therapy in this context. This was a retrospective multicenter study of 85 patients with RPR treated with targeted therapy for RPR after RN (July 2008-October 2020). Clinical and pathological characteristics were reported using descriptive statistics. Cancer-specific survival (CSS) was examined using the Cox proportional hazards model. The median follow-up time was 50 months (95% confidence interval [CI]: 33.3-66.7) after the RPR diagnosis. The median CSS was 96 months in the presurgical targeted therapy followed by surgical resection group and 42 months (95% CI: 28.8-55.2) in the targeted therapy alone group (P = .0011). In multivariate analysis, International Metastatic RCC Database Consortium classification intermediate/poor risk, number of recurrence lesions and surgical resection were independent predictors of CSS. Presurgical targeted therapy may increase the feasibility of tumor resection for RPR after RN. Patients who underwent surgical resection following presurgical targeted therapy had better CSS than those treated with targeted therapy alone.

Automated summary

This retrospective multicenter study analyzed the clinical outcomes and prognostic factors of 85 patients who underwent targeted therapy for local retroperitoneal recurrence (RPR) after radical nephrectomy (RN). The study found that presurgical targeted therapy followed by surgical resection was associated with better cancer-specific survival (CSS) compared to targeted therapy alone. Factors such as risk classification, number of recurrence lesions, and surgical resection were independent predictors of CSS.