Microscopic venous invasion in pT3aN0M0 renal cell cancer

Abstract

– A retrospective analysis was carried out to assess the prognostic significance of microvascular invasion (mV) in 48 patients with pT3aN0M0 renal cell cancer. mV is defined in this study as the definite presence of neoplastic thrombosis, more or less adhering to and/or infiltrating the walls of the small venous vessels. Taking into consideration just neoplasms with a nuclear grading of 2 and 3 (according to Fuhrman), at the time of the study 65% of deceased patients were mV+, while 74% of living patients were in mV-. The probabilities of survival, according to Kaplan Mayer, in the two groups of patients appear to be significantly influenced by the mV+ and mV- factor. It can be concluded that this factor, histologically easy to determine, is useful for selecting a sub-group of patients with a more unfavourable prognosis.