Assessment of other-cause mortality in localized renal cell carcinoma patients within 15 years: A population-based analysis

Background and Objective: Five-year other cause mortality (OCM) after nephrectomy for non-metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) should be marginal in properly selected surgical candidates. We examined 5-year OCM rates as a quality of care indicator for patient selection. Materials and Methods: Within the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (1997-2011), we identified 59267 RCC patients treated with either radical (n = 27 804, 46.9%) or partial nephrectomy (n = 31 463, 53.1%). Temporal trends and multivariable Cox regression analyses assessed 5-year OCM. Data were stratified according to age group, year of diagnosis, race, marital status, gender, and socio-economic status. The overall OCM rates for the entire cohort at 5 years of follow-up was 4.7% and decreased from 9.4% to 5.6% over the study span (−3.8%, P <.001). The greatest decrease in 5-year OCM rates over time was recorded in patients >70 years (17.0%-9.6%, slope, −0.6%/y), as well as in African-Americans (12.0-6.2%; slope, −0.3%/y) and in males (8.9%-4.7%; slope, −0.3%, all P <.001). Conclusions: An important OCM decrease was recorded over the study span. Nonetheless, further improvement may be accomplished, especially in African-Americans, unmarried and older individuals, who exhibited higher OCM rates than others. These three groups may represent ideal targets for better patient selection based on OCM considerations.