Abstract
In February 1990, a multicentric randomized study was started to verify the therapeutic efficacy of adjuvant alpha-interferon in Robson's stage II and III renal cell carcinoma. Up to April 1992, 749 radical nephrectomies have been recorded by the 25 participating centers. Stage II and III patients fullfilling selection criteria were 124: 64 were assigned to Interferon therapy and 60 to control. The short follow-up does not allow any evaluation of the relapse rate. Therapy related toxicity was represented by mild fever and flu-like syndrome in 50% of cases and slight leucopenia in 5%. The recruitment of the first 200 randomized patients will end approximately within 1 year. While evaluating the hypothesis of a 20% difference in the 5 year disease-free survival between the two groups recruitment will continue up to a total of 350 cases, in order to verify the 15% hypothesis, too.
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