A minimally invasive procedure is as effective as surgery for treating early-stage kidney cancer, according to 10-year survival data published in Radiology (online June 9, 2020; doi:10.1148/radiol.2020192325).
Percutaneous cryoablation is an outpatient procedure that is increasingly being used for the treatment of stage I renal cell carcinoma (RCC).
Christos S Georgiades, MD, PhD, department of vascular and interventional radiology, Johns Hopkins University, and colleagues sought to determine the 10-year oncologic outcomes of percutaneous cryoablation for stage I RCC. The prospective, observational study included 134 patients with single, sporadic, biopsy-proven RCC. Researchers assessed 10-year overall survival (OS), recurrence-free survival, and disease-specific survival after percutaneous cryoablation.
Results were compared across matched partial nephrectomy and radical nephrectomy cohorts from the National Cancer Database. Researchers also evaluated long-term renal function and risk of metachronous disease.
Dr Georgiades and colleagues found that after 5 and 10 years, OS among the patient population was 86% (95% CI, 80% to 93%) and 72% (95% CI, 62% to 83%), respectively. Additionally, they found that recurrence-free survival was 85% (95% CI, 79% to 91%) and 69% (95% CI, 59% to 79%), respectively, and disease-specific survival was 94% (95% CI, 90% to 98%) at both 5 and 10 years.
They noted that the recurrence-free survival rates were higher in the patient population than in the matched surgery cohorts, and the disease-specific survival rates were similar to those in the surgery cohorts.
Furthermore, researchers acknowledged that percutaneous cryoablation was associated with a lower 10-year risk of hemodialysis compared with surgery.
“Studies like this may convince societies to make cryoablation the go-to option, at least for early-stage kidney cancer,” stated Dr Georgiades in a press release (June 9, 2020).—Zachary Bessette
