Single-stage minimally invasive nephroureterectomy for upper tract urothelial carcinoma: Perioperative and early oncological outcomes

Objective:

The purpose of this article is to present our minimally-invasive techniques for upper tract urothelial carcinoma and review the perioperative and early oncological outcomes at our centre.

Materials and methods:

A retrospective review of all patients undergoing minimally-invasive surgery for upper tract urothelial carcinoma over a 3-year period following institutional approval was performed. Perioperative and early oncological outcomes were assessed.

Results:

Twenty-three cases of minimally-invasive single-stage nephroureterectomy were performed with a mean patient age of 69.45 years. Twelve (52%) of these cases were for high-grade disease and six (27%) had received neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. There were no intraoperative complications, no positive surgical margins and four (17.4%) of patients had a post-operative complication. Mean length of stay was 5.5 days and there was one readmission within 30 days of surgery. Seven patients (30%) experienced either local or distant recurrences with a median time to recurrence of 6 months. Recurrence free survival was 69.6%. Two patients died during the follow-up period.

Conclusion:

Our minimally-invasive techniques provides a safe and reproducible approach for upper tract urothelial carcinoma. Our perioperative outcomes and oncological are comparable to similar studies, but more long-term follow-up and larger patient numbers are required to validate oncological efficacy.

Level of evidence:

4.