Toshiaki Kawaguchi

Background This study compared real-world outcomes of metastatic renal-cell carcinoma (mRCC) patients treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors or nivolumab plus ipilimumab. Methods Using the International mRCC Database Consortium (IMDC), we retrospectively evaluated intermediate- and poor-risk mRCC patients who were treated with nivolumab plus ipilimumab (Nivo-Ipi), tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) as the first-line therapy between August 2015 and January 2020. We compared oncological outcomes between the Nivo-Ipi group and TKIs group using multivariate logistic regression analysis with the inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) method. Results In this study 278 patients were included. There were 52 and 226 patients in the Nivo-Ipi and TKIs groups (sunitinib 97, axitinib 118, sorafenib 9, pazopanib 2), respectively. The median age in the Nivo-Ipi and TKIs groups were 69 and 67 years, respectively. There was no significant difference in age, performance status, history of nephrectomy, and the IMDC risk group distribution between the groups. The objective response rate was significantly higher in the Nivo-Ipi group (38%) than in the TKIs group (23%, P = 0.018). The IPTW-adjusted Cox regression analysis showed that a significantly longer progression-free survival (hazard ratio 0.60, P = 0.039) and overall survival (hazard ratio 0.51, P = 0.037) rates in the Nivo-Ipi group than those in the TKIs group. Conclusions The oncological outcomes of patients receiving the first-line therapy of nivolumab plus ipilimumab in real-world practice were significantly improved in comparison with first-line TKIs therapy.

Oncologic benefits of laparoscopic radical nephroureterectomy (LNU) are unclear. We aimed to evaluate the impact of surgical approach for radical nephroureterectomy on oncologic outcomes in patients with locally advanced upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC).

The prognostic benefit of oncological follow-up to detect asymptomatic recurrence after radical cystectomy (RC) remains unclear. We aimed to assess whether routine follow-up to detect asymptomatic recurrence after RC improves patient survival. We retrospectively analyzed 581 RC cases for muscle-invasive bladder cancer at four hospitals between May 1996 and February 2017. All patients had regular follow-up examinations with urine cytology, blood biochemical tests, and computed tomography after RC. We investigated the first site and date of tumor recurrence. Overall survival in patients with recurrence stratified by the mode of recurrence (asymptomatic group vs. symptomatic group) was estimated using the Kaplan–Meier method with the log-rank test. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis via inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) was used to evaluate the impact of the mode of diagnosing recurrence on survival. Of the 581 patients, 175 experienced relapse. Among those, 12 without adequate data were excluded. Of the remaining 163 patients, 76 (47%) were asymptomatic and 87 (53%) were symptomatic at the time of diagnosis. The most common recurrence site and symptom were lymph nodes (47%) and pain (53%), respectively. Time of overall survival after RC and from recurrence to death was significantly longer in the asymptomatic group than in the symptomatic group. A multivariate Cox regression analysis using IPTW showed that in the patients with symptomatic recurrence was an independent risk factor for overall survival after RC and survival from recurrence to death. Routine oncological follow-up for detection of asymptomatic recurrence contributes to a better prognosis after RC.

Turner syndrome is characterized by complete or partial X-chromosome monosomy and has various clinical features, including horseshoe kidney. Leiomyosarcoma is an extremely rare tumor that accounts for only 0.1% of all invasive renal tumors. A 50-year-old Japanese woman presented at a community hospital with a chief complaint of abdominal pain. Computed tomography revealed a horseshoe kidney with a hypovascular tumor (size, 9 × 7 cm) showing calcification in the upper pole of the right kidney. Open right heminephrectomy and division of the isthmus were performed. Histological examination revealed alternating fascicles of spindle cells with blunt ended non-tapering nuclei and eosinophilic cytoplasm. The tumor had high mitotic activity with a mitotic count of 8 mitoses/10 high-power fields. On the basis of these findings, we diagnosed the patient as having leiomyosarcoma. Primary leiomyosarcoma of the horseshoe kidney in a patient with Turner syndrome is a very rare occurrence.