Objectives: To assess the sex differences in the clinical and pathologic characteristics of upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) and to determine the effect on prognosis after radical nephroureterectomy (RNU) in a large multicenter series.
Methods: The records of 1363 patients who had undergone RNU were reviewed from the UTUC Collaboration database. The median follow-up was 47 months (range 0-250). The pathologic slides were re-evaluated by genitourinary pathologists unaware of the original findings from the slides and the clinical outcomes. The endpoints were freedom from tumor recurrence and disease-specific survival.
Results: The male-to-female ratio was 2.1:1. The women were older than the men at diagnosis (70 +/- 11 vs 68 +/- 11 years; P < .001). No significant sex-related differences were found in the presence of symptoms at presentation (P = .70), pathologic stage (P = .98), tumor grade (P = .28), tumor architecture (P = .27), presence of lymphovascular invasion (P = .42), presence of concomitant carcinoma in situ (P = .08), or the presence of lymph node metastases (P = .24). Recurrence developed in 379 patients (28%), and 313 patients (23%) died of their disease. Sex was not associated with disease recurrence (P = .07) or disease-specific survival (P = .13). An adjustment for the effects of the pathologic features did not change the lack of association of sex with the clinical outcomes.
Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the largest series analyzing the effect of sex on the outcomes after RNU. No difference was found in the clinicopathologic features or prognosis between women and men treated with RNU for UTUC. The results of this large, international series show that RNU provides durable local control and disease-specific survival for both men and women with UTUC.