Clinicopathological features of our renal cell carcinoma metastasis cases: A single-center experience

Abstract

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common renal tumor in adults, arising from renal tubular epithelial cells. Approximately 30% of patients with RCC have metastases at the time of diagnosis, while metastases can be seen in 40% of patients during follow-up after nephrectomy. Metastases most commonly occur in the lung, bone, and lymph nodes. In our study, we aimed to retrospectively examine the cases diagnosed with RCC metastasis and evaluate their clinicopathological features. Age, gender, metastasis site, number of metastatic foci, localization of primary kidney tumor, histopathological type of primary kidney tumor, diameter of primary kidney tumor, grade of primary kidney tumor, and survival status of 52 patients diagnosed with RCC metastasis were recorded. Eleven (21.2%) of the cases had primary RCC and simultaneous (synchronous) RCC metastasis in the kidney. In 27 (51.9%) cases, RCC metastasis was detected in the follow-up period (metachronous) after nephrectomy due to the diagnosis of primary. The number of patients who were initially diagnosed with RCC metastasis and then were found to have primary RCC in the kidney was 14 (26.9%). Thirty-nine (75%) cases had a single metastatic focus. Metastasis site distribution of the cases; bone 18 (34.6%), lung 16 (30.8%), lymph nodes 8 (15.4%), liver 6 (11.5%), adrenal gland 6 (11.5%), brain 4 (7.7%) was. RCC metastases can occur as metastatic disease before primary tumor diagnosis, at the time of primary tumor diagnosis, or years after nephrectomy.