The safety and efficacy of laparoscopic microwave ablation-assisted partial nephrectomy: a new avenue for the treatment of cystic renal tumors

Abstract

Purpose

Clinically, the management of cystic renal masses is tricky. The study aims to evaluate the safety and efficacy of laparoscopic microwave ablation-assisted partial nephrectomy (LMAPN) for cystic renal tumors.

Methods and materials

Between November 2017 and January 2022, LMAPN was performed on 43 patients (29 men and 14 women; age range: 22–80 years; median age 54 years) with Bosniak category III (n = 15) or IV (n = 28) cystic renal tumors (size range: 1.2–5.0 cm; mean size 2.8 cm). The median follow-up period was 26 months (range: 7–56 months). Baseline and perioperative data, pathological features, renal function, postoperative complications and oncologic outcomes were collected and evaluated.

Results

Forty-three cystic renal tumors were successfully managed by LMAPN. The mean operating time was 79 min (range: 40–130 min). The mean time of renal pedicle clamping was 19 min (range: 12–25 min). Mean intraoperative blood loss was 28.4 mL (range: 10–80 mL). The mean postoperative hospitalization duration was 4 days (range: 2–6 days). Negative surgical margins were diagnosed in all cases. During the follow-up, no patient appeared with distant metastasis, wound or peritoneal cavity implantation. No major but minor complications of Clavien–Dindo grade I were encountered after the operation. The 1-, 3- and 4-year overall survival rate was 100%, 96.6% and 88.5%, respectively.

Conclusion

This is the first study focusing on LMAPN for cystic renal tumors, demonstrating its favorable feasibility, safety and disease control. Long-term follow-up is necessary to draw conclusions on the preference and advantages of the new therapeutic approach.

Keywords:

• Cystic renal tumor
• microwave ablation
• partial nephrectomy
• safety
• efficacy

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank all the patients involved in this study for their collaboration and support. We acknowledge Jia Xue from Crown Bioscience for her assistance in language editing.

Ethics statement

The study was approved by the institutional review board (No. 2020KT21) and conducted in accordance with Good Clinical Practice and the Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent was obtained from the patients.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: N.Z. and Y.Y. Data curation: B.H., Q.Z. and Y.J. Formal analysis: B.H. Funding acquisition: N.Z. and B.H. Methodology: B.H., Q.Z. and Y.J. Project administration and supervision: N.Z. and Y.Y. Original draft writing: B.H.

Consent form

Written consent for publication was obtained from all patients involved.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Data availability statement

The data used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing (Grant No. 7212010 and No. 7224322), and the Special Health Development Research Project of Capital (Grant No. 2020-2-1024).