Role of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced and clinically positive nodes Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma treated with Nephroureterectomy: real-world data from the ROBUUST 2.0 Registry

• Published in: World journal of urology Vol. 42; no. 1; p. 575
• Main Authors: Tuderti, Gabriele, Mastroianni, Riccardo, Proietti, Flavia, Wu, Zhenjie, Wang, Linhui, Franco, Antonio, Abdollah, Firas, Finati, Marco, Ferro, Matteo, Tozzi, Marco, Porpiglia, Francesco, Checcucci, Enrico, Bhanvadia, Raj, Margulis, Vitaly, Bronimann, Stephan, Singla, Nirmish, Hakimi, Kevin, Derweesh, Ithaar H., Correa, Andreas, Helstrom, Emma, Mendiola, Dinno F., Gonzalgo, Mark L., David, Reuben Ben, Mehrazin, Reza, Moon, Sol C., Rais-Bahrami, Soroush, Yong, Courtney, Sundaram, Chandru P., Tufano, Antonio, Perdonà, Sisto, Ghoreifi, Alireza, Moghaddam, Farshad S., Djaladat, Hooman, Ditonno, Francesco, Antonelli, Alessandro, Autorino, Riccardo, Simone, Giuseppe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 12-10-2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aged; Cancer; Carcinoma, Transitional Cell - drug therapy; Carcinoma, Transitional Cell - pathology; Carcinoma, Transitional Cell - surgery; Chemotherapy; Chemotherapy, Adjuvant; Clinical trials; Female; Humans; Kidney Neoplasms - drug therapy; Kidney Neoplasms - pathology; Kidney Neoplasms - surgery; Kidney Neoplasms - therapy; Lymphatic Metastasis; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Middle Aged; Neoadjuvant Therapy; Neoplasm Staging; Nephrology; Nephroureterectomy; Oncology; Registries; Retrospective Studies; Robotic surgery; Survival; Survival Rate; Ureteral Neoplasms - drug therapy; Ureteral Neoplasms - mortality; Ureteral Neoplasms - pathology; Ureteral Neoplasms - surgery; Urology; Urothelial cancer; Urothelial carcinoma; Neoadjuvant chemotherapy; Nephroureterectomy; Upper tract urothelial carcinoma; Survival; Outcomes
• ISSN: 1433-8726; 0724-4983; 1433-8726
• DOI: 10.1007/s00345-024-05267-9

Purpose
To assess the impact of neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy on survival outcomes, within a large multicenter cohort of Upper tract urothelial carcinoma patients treated with Nephroureterectomy.
Methods
A multicenter retrospective analysis utilizing the Robotic surgery for Upper Tract Urothelial Cancer Study registry was performed. Baseline, preoperative, perioperative, and pathologic variables of three groups of patients receiving surgery only, neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy were compared. Categorical and continuous variables among the three subgroups were compared with Chi square and ANOVA tests. The impact of perioperative chemotherapy on survival outcomes was assessed with the Kaplan Meier method. Univariable and multivariable Cox regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of survival.
Results
Overall, 1,994 patients were included. Overall and Clavien grade ≥3 complications rates were comparable among the three subgroups (
p
 = 0.65 and
p
 = 0.92). At Kaplan Meier analysis, neoadjuvant chemotherapy significantly improved cancer-specific survival (
p
 = 0.03) and overall survival (
p
 = 0.03) probabilities of patients with cT ≥ 3 tumors and of those with positive cN (
p
 = 0.03 and
p
 = 0.02). On multivariable analysis, neoadjuvant chemotherapy was independently associated with an improvement of cancer-specific survival in cT ≥ 3 patients (HR 0.44;
p
 = 0.04), and of both cancer-specific survival (HR 0.50;
p
 = 0.03) and overall survival (HR 0.53;
p
 = 0.02) probabilities in positive cN patients.
Conclusions
This large multicenter retrospective analysis suggests significant survival benefit in Upper tract urothelial carcinoma patients with either locally advanced or clinically positive nodes disease receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy. These findings can be regarded as “hypothesis generating”, stimulating future trials focusing on such advanced stages.