Palliative percutaneous nephrostomy in recurrent cervical cancer: Retrospective analysis of 50 consecutive cases

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19609 Background: Cervical cancer is a public health problem in Brazil, with annual incidence rates of 20 to 40 cases/ 100.000 women. Most patients with recurrent disease have local symptoms and develop renal failure. There are no clear guidelines to predict which patients in palliative care derive benefit from percutaneous nephrostomy (PN) in terms of survival and quality of life. This study aims to evaluate the outcome of patients with recurrent cervical cancer in palliative care submitted to PN and thereby identify those who can potentially benefit from this intervention. Methods: Retrospective chart review of all patients assisted in the Palliative Care Unit of Brazilian National Cancer Institute from January 2002 to October 2006 and submitted to PN. Results: Fifty patients received unilateral PN. Median age was 44 years (26 - 67). All patients were previously treated with radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy and brachytherapy. At relapse, 50 presented with locally advanced disease and 7 also had metastatic disease. Twenty-four patients (49%) had improvement of uremic symptoms and/ or lumbar pain after PN and seven (14%) in Performance Status (PS). Median creatinine levels before and after PN were 6.4 and 3.7 mg/dl, respectively (p < 0.05). Twenty-five patients (50%) had improvement in renal function. Until December 2006, 49 patients have died. Median overall survival after PN was 9.1 weeks (95% CI: 8.0 - 10.2). Median survival was 10 weeks (9.0 - 11.0) in 40 patients with baseline PS 1 - 3 and 1.7 weeks (0 - 3.7) in 10 patients with PS 4 (log rank, p = 0.04). Median survival in patients with and without improvement of renal function after PN was 10.7 weeks (8.6 - 12.8) and 8.1 weeks (4.8 - 11.5), respectively (log rank, p = 0.02). Twenty-nine patients (58%) died due to renal failure. Complications of PN were mainly urinary tract infection (n: 10), catheter loss (n: 9) and bleeding (n: 1). Conclusions: These data suggest that PN can be of clinical benefit for patients with recurrent cervical cancer and PS 1 to 3, but not PS 4. In fact, improvement of renal function after PN did prolong survival. Complications of PN are frequent and most patients still die in renal failure. However, our data indicate that carefully selected patients can derive benefit from this procedure. No significant financial relationships to disclose.