Oncologic Outcomes and Safety Assessment of Retroperitoneal Laparoscopic Partial Nephrectomy versus Open Partial Nephrectomy in Treating Patients with Localized Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Propensity Score Matching Study.

Aim: Surgical intervention is crucial in radical resection of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Different surgical procedures have different oncologic outcomes and safety in patients with RCC. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the oncologic outcomes and safety of retroperitoneal laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (RLPN) versus open partial nephrectomy (OPN) in treating patients with localized RCC.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study included 160 patients with localized RCC who underwent either OPN or RLPN from January 2016 to June 2020. Out of these patients, 75 patients were treated with OPN and 85 patients were treated with RLPN. After propensity score matching, 130 patients (65 cases in each group) were finally included in the analysis. Additionally, surgical outcomes, three-year survival rates, and renal function parameters were assessed between the two groups, and the data were statistically analyzed using SPSS.

Results: Compared to the OPN group, RLPN demonstrated significantly shorter surgical time, lower estimated blood loss (p < 0.05), and lower incidence of complications (p = 0.024). In contrast, the RLPN group had significantly longer warm ischemia time (p = 0.011) than the OPN group. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in three-year overall survival, disease-free survival, cancer specific survival rates, positive surgical margins, hospitalization time between the RLPN and OPN groups (p > 0.05). The incidence of complications in the RLPN group was significantly lower than that in the OPN group (p = 0.024). Postoperatively, creatinine level was significantly lower following RLPN at one year compared to OPN (p = 0.029).

Conclusions: RLPN offers advantages in surgical time, estimated blood loss, and postoperative complications, and it positively affects postoperative renal function, while OPN shows a shorter warm ischemia time. These two approaches result in comparable three-year survival rates. This study provides valuable insights into the oncologic outcomes and safety of RLPN compared to OPN in treating localized RCC.