Effect of Adjuvant Radiotherapy on Survival in Patients with Locoregional Urothelial Malignancies of the Upper Urinary Tract.
BACKGROUND
While radical nephroureterectomy is the treatment of choice for localized or regional urothelial carcinoma of the upper urinary tract (UTUC), the role of adjuvant radiotherapy is unclear, with conflicting data from various small studies.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
We sought to study the impact of adjuvant radiotherapy on UTUC by utilizing the Survelliance, Epidemiolgy, and End Results (SEER) 9 database from 1998-2011.


RESULTS
Of 2,572 identified cases, 113 patients (4.4%) received adjuvant radiotherapy, with a median age of 74 years (range=22-100 years). In univariate analysis, patients treated with adjuvant radiation therapy seemed to have a lower survival time than those without radiation therapy (19 months versus 31 months, p<0.05). However, after adjusting for covariates, including age at diagnosis, gender, race, year of diagnosis, stage, histological grade and surgery, radiation therapy did not seem to influence survival (hazard ratio=0.68; 95% confidence interval=0.68-1.06, p=0.85).


CONCLUSION
This hypothesis-generating, population-based analysis shows that adjuvant radiotherapy may not influence survival among patients with locoregional UTUC.
['Hahn|Andrew W|AW|', 'Giri|Smith|S|', 'Pathak|Ranjan|R|', 'Bhatt|Vijaya Raj|VR|', 'Martin|Mike G|MG|']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D018572:Disease-Free Survival D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local D018714:Radiotherapy, Adjuvant D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms D019459:Urothelium
Radiotherapy upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma