Introduction

Follow-up algorithms following surgical treatment for localized renal cell carcinoma (RCC) have been a matter of debate for years. Our objective was to determine the long-term oncological outcome of localized RCC (

Methods

We identified 880 patients with complete long-term follow-up data, surgically treated for RCC (

Results

After a median follow-up was 74.33 months (range 2.67-289) 38 patients had disease recurrence (4.35% of all patients). 73.5 % of these were distant metastasis and 26.5% showed local recurrence.. 42.1% of events occurred after the recommended follow-up period of 60 months. There was a trend towards later metastasis in patients with low grade (G1) and low stage (Ta) tumors. Patients with lung metastasis and patients with multiple metastatic locations, developed metastasis earlier than those with bone metastasis. The time point of metastasis did not correlate with age, in contrast to an increased risk of dying of other causes. (Figure 1)

Conclusions

Current guidelines recommend a follow-up of five years. Our data shows that over 42% of recurrences happen after this time point. We suggest that age adjusted strategies might be appropriate for future follow-up strategies weighing up life expectancy and the risk of developing a tumor recurrence.

Funding

none