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Surgery to Remove the Kidney Can Improve Survival in Advanced Kidney Cancer

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Surgery to Remove the Kidney Can Improve Survival in Advanced Kidney Cancer

Kidney cancer that has spread to other parts of the body (metastatic renal cell carcinoma, or mRCC) is very difficult to treat. Fewer than 15% of patients live five years after diagnosis. One treatment option is cytoreductive nephrectomy (CN), which is surgery to remove the kidney containing the main tumor. The idea is that by lowering the amount of cancer in the body, other treatments like targeted therapy or immunotherapy may work better.

Researchers studied more than 6,000 patients with advanced kidney cancer from the U.S. SEER database. They compared patients who had CN with those who did not. To make the groups as fair as possible, they matched patients by age, health, and cancer characteristics.

The results were striking. Patients who had CN lived much longer. Five years after diagnosis, about 32% of patients who had surgery were alive, compared to only 4% of those who did not. The surgery reduced the risk of death by more than 70%. These benefits were seen across many different patient groups, even among those with more aggressive or advanced disease.

This study shows that CN still has an important role in treating advanced kidney cancer, even in the era of modern medicines like immune checkpoint inhibitors.

For patients, this means that surgery may be worth considering as part of a combined treatment plan. Not every patient will be a candidate for CN, but for the right individuals, it can make a significant difference in survival.

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