Renal cell carcinoma is one of the most commonly diagnosed urological malignancies in the United States of America. The clinical management of renal cell carcinoma has evolved over the years with the emergence of novel therapy such as systemic therapy. This present study examined the effect of adjuvant and neoadjuvant systemic therapy on the survival and mortality of renal cell carcinoma patients. Our study also assessed the sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with time to systemic therapy initiation. This retrospective study utilized Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Ends Results (SEER) Research Plus dataset of patients 55 years and older, diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma from 2010-2019. Deidentified data from 122 patients who received neoadjuvant systemic therapy and 943 patients received adjuvant therapy was used in the analyses. The outcome variables for this study include all cause-mortality, overall survival, cancer-specific survival, and time to treatment initiation. Demographic and clinical variables of interest include age, sex, race, income group, region of residence, ethnicity, tumor size, tumor grade, tumor stage, and presence of distant organ metastases. Findings from this study suggest that adjuvant systemic therapy, older age, black race, and metastases to the lungs are associated with all-cause mortality and are also associated with poor overall and cancer-specific survival. Time to systemic treatment was found to be significantly associated with race, gender, ethnicity, marital status, and tumor stage.
INDEX WORDS: Renal cell cancer, systemic therapy, time to treatment initiation.
INDEX WORDS: Renal cell cancer, systemic therapy, time to treatment initiation.