Research Article Cancer Characteristics and Current Treatments of Patients with Renal Cell Carcinoma in Sweden

Copyright © 2015 Andreas Thorstenson et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Methodology. Since the start in 2005 virtually all patients with newly diagnosed renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in Sweden are reported to the National Swedish Kidney Cancer Register (NSKCR). The register contains information on histopathology, nuclear grade, clinical stage, preoperative work-up, treatment, recurrence, and survival. Results. A total of 8556 patients with newly diagnosed RCC were registered in the NSKCR from 2005 to 2013 resulting in a coverage of 99 % as compared to the Swedish Cancer Registry. Themean tumor size at detection decreased from70mm in 2005 to 64mm in 2010.Theproportion of patients whowere incidentally detected increased. The proportion of patients with tumor stage T1a who underwent partial nephrectomy increased from 22 % in 2005 to 56 % in 2012. Similarly, the proportion of laparoscopically performed radical nephrectomies increased from 6 % in 2005 to 17 % in 2010. During the five years of follow-up 20 % of the patients had a recurrence.Conclusion. Over the last decade there has bee