Patients with papillary renal cell carcinoma, the second most common kidney cancer subtype, face a low risk of tumour recurrence and cancer-related death after surgery. Those are the key findings of a multi-centre study of nearly 600 patients published in the April issue of the urology journal BJUI.   

"Because papillary renal cell carcinoma (pRCC) only affects ten to 15% of kidney cancer patients, the small number of patients enrolled in individual studies makes it hard to draw meaningful conclusions about how the disease will progress" says lead author Dr Vincenzo Ficarra, associate professor of urology at the University of Padua, Italy.

"Bringing together data on 577 patients from 16 academic centres across Italy has enabled us to study this subtype in more detail than a single-centre study would allow."

The patients with pRCC were identified from 5,463 patients with suspected renal cell carcinoma at the centres between 1995 and 2007. Follow-up ranged from 22 to 72 months and the median was just over 39 months.

Key findings of the study, which forms part of a larger research project promoted by LUNA, the clinical research office of the Italian Society of Urology, include:

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