Contemporary trends in nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma in the United States: results from a population based cohort

Purpose: Despite benefits in functional renal outcome and the similar oncological efficacy of partial nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma, previous studies show marked underuse of partial nephrectomy. We describe national trends in partial and radical nephrectomy using a contemporary, population based cohort.

Materials and methods: Using the 2003 to 2008 Nationwide Inpatient Sample we identified 188,702 patients treated with partial or radical nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma at a total of 1,755 hospitals. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the independent associations of patient and hospital characteristics with partial nephrectomy. Post-estimations from multivariate logistic regression were done to ascertain the annual predicted probability of partial nephrectomy by hospital feature.

Results: Overall 149,636 (79.3%) and 39,066 patients (20.7%) underwent radical and partial nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma, respectively. Partial nephrectomy use increased each year from 16.8% in 2003 to 25.1% in 2008 (p for trend <0.001). On multivariate analysis patients were more likely to undergo partial nephrectomy at teaching (OR 1.31, p <0.001) and urban (OR 1.13, p = 0.05) hospitals compared to nonteaching and rural hospitals, respectively. Each quartile of higher nephrectomy annual volume was associated with higher odds of partial nephrectomy compared to the lowest quartile (OR 1.21, p <0.001). Although annual predicted partial nephrectomy use increased across all hospitals, differences in annual partial nephrectomy use by teaching status, site (urban vs rural) and case volume persisted with time.

Conclusions: Although the use of partial nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma is increasing nationally across all hospitals, academic and urban hospitals as well as those with higher nephrectomy volume continue to show higher partial nephrectomy use for renal cell carcinoma.