Cancers
Long-Term Outcomes of Cryoablation for Solitary De Novo T1a Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Tertiary Cancer Center Experience
By Mohamed E. Abdelsalam, Ahmed Awad, Robert J. Raymond and 11 others.
Abstract
Objective
To assess the long-term oncologic and survival outcomes of percutaneous cryoablation (PCA) for patients with solitary de novo T1a renal cell carcinoma (RCC).
Methods
This retrospective study was conducted following the STROBE guidelines. We included patients with a single, biopsy-confirmed, treatment-naïve T1a RCC (<4 cm) who underwent PCA between January 2008 and December 2021. Patient demographics, tumor characteristics, and procedural details were collected. Survival analyses were performed using the Kaplan–Meier estimator.
Results
Eighty-six patients (57 men and 29 women) with a median age of 69 years met the inclusion criteria. Fifty patients (58%) had a history of an additional non-renal malignancy. In total, 86 renal tumors were treated using PCA, with a median tumor diameter of 2.7 cm. Clear cell RCC accounted for 67.4% of the tumors. Procedural complications classified as Clavien–Dindo grade III or higher occurred in 4.6% of cases. Local tumor recurrence at the ablation site was observed in five patients (5.8%), and four patients (4.6%) developed new lesions elsewhere within the kidney. The estimated median overall survival was 10.34 years. The 10-year local recurrence-free and disease-free survival rates were 93.5% and 84.0%, respectively. Both metastasis-free survival and cancer-specific survival rates at 10 years were 100%.



