Objective To investigate the clinicopathological features and prognosis of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma(ChRCC). Methods The clinical and pathological data of 126 patients with ChRCC treated in Cancer Hospital of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences were retrospectively analyzed. Results The patients included 64 males and 62 females,with the age of 22-80 years(median of 52 years).The tumor was located on the right side in 70 cases and on the left side in 56 cases.Ultrasound,CT or magnetic resonance imaging(MRI)were performed.Of the 110 cases receiving ultrasound examination,63,23,13,10,and 1 cases showed hypoecho,hyperecho,isoecho,uneven or mixed echo,and dark hypoecho,respectively.Color Doppler flow imaging showed no blood flow signal in 42 cases and low blood flow signal in 60 cases out of 68 cases with blood flow signal.Among the 54 cases receiving CT,50 cases showed equal density or low density and 4 cases showed high density with clear boundary.The enhanced scanning showed mild to moderate uniform or non-uniform reinforcement,mostly below the renal parenchyma,and still showed reinforcement in the delayed period.Among the 97 cases receiving MRI,96 cases showed hypo-or isointense signals and 1 case showed hyperintense signal in T1 weighted images;71 cases showed hyper-or isointense signals and 26 cases showed hypo-or isointense signals in T2 weighted images;93 cases showed hyperintense signals with obvious limited diffusion and 4 cases showed unobvious limited diffusion in diffusion weighted images.Mild to moderate uniform or non-uniform reinforcement was observed in most of the enhanced scans.All the 126 patients underwent surgical treatment,including 64 cases of nephron sparing surgery and 62 cases of radical surgery.Pathological examinations confirmed ChRCC for all the patients,including 91 cases of T1N0M0,15 cases of T2N0M0,and 20 cases of T3N0M0.The immunohistochemical assay demonstrated the positive expression rate of 48.2%(54/112)for CD10,92.3%(96/104)for CD117,8.0%(9/112)for vimentin,85.6%(95/111)for CK7,and 97.6%(83/85)for colloidal iron.Conclusions ChRCC is less common,with low level of malignancy and good prognosis.Since the clinical symptoms of ChRCC are not typical,MRI is an important means of imaging differential diagnosis,and the disease can be confirmed depending on pathological diagnosis.Surgery is the preferred treatment method,and currently there is no standard treatment regimen for metastatic patients.
Keywords: chromophobe cell carcinoma; clinical diagnosis; prognosis; renal cell carcinoma; treatment.