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Objectives: This study investigated the relapse pattern and oncologic outcomes after laparoscopic nephroureterectomy with template-based lymph node dissection (LND) in patients with clinically node-negative (cN0) upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma. The frequency of lymph node metastasis, including micrometastases, was also evaluated. Methods and materials: A total of 105 patients with cTa-3N0M0 upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma were analyzed, all of whom underwent regional LND during laparoscopic nephroureterectomy. Of those patients, 96 (91%) underwent complete LND in accordance with an anatomical template-based rule. We collected patient characteristics, pathological data, and follow-up data from medical charts. Micrometastases were assessed by pan-cytokeratin immunohistochemistry. Nonurothelial recurrence-free survival and cancer-specific survival were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: The median number of lymph nodes removed was 12 (range, 1-59). Lymph node metastasis was identified by routine pathological examination in 7 (7/105, 6.7%) patients. Pan-cytokeratin immunohistochemistry revealed micrometastases in 5 additional patients (pNmicro +: 5/105, 4.8%). Nonurothelial disease recurrence was observed in 21 (20%) patients at a median of 10 months (range: 1- 33) after surgery. Distant metastasis was dominant (15/105, 14.3%), followed by locoregional recurrence (5/105, 4.8%) and both (1/105, 0.95%). The 5-year nonurothelial recurrence-free survival rates were 84.8% for pN0, 53.3% for pNmicro+, and 19.1% for pN+ (3-sample log-rank test, P < 0.0001). The 5-year cancer-specific survival rates were 95.0% for pN0, 53.3% for pNmicro+, and 23.8% for pN+ (P < 0.0001). Conclusions: Our observation showed that template-based LND could contribute to precise disease staging and better local disease control probably by eliminating nodal disease, compared with previous studies. The survival impact and ideal management of pNmicro+ disease shou

Objective To clarify the prognostic impact of local radiotherapy on metastatic urothelial carcinoma patients treated by systemic chemotherapy. Methods Of the 228 metastatic urothelial carcinoma patients treated with systemic chemotherapy, 97 received radiotherapy mainly to metastatic sites. In patients for whom the purpose of radiotherapy was not specified, more than 50 Gy irradiation was considered to be for disease consolidation for survival analysis, while less than 50 Gy was categorized as palliation. According to the Kaplan-Meier method, we analysed overall survival from the initiation of treatment for metastatic urothelial carcinoma until death or the last follow-up, using the log-rank test to assess the significance of differences. The Cox model was applied for prognostic factor analysis. Results Overall, there was no significant difference in survival between patients with and those without radiotherapy (P = 0.1532). When analysing the patients undergoing consolidative radiotherapy separately, these 25 patients showed significantly longer survival than the 72 patients with palliative radiotherapy (P = 0.0047), with a 3-year overall survival of 43.3%. Of the present cohort, 22 underwent metastasectomy for disease consolidation, and there was no overlapping case between the metastasectomy cohort and cohort receiving consolidative radiotherapy. After controlling for four independent prognostic factors (sex, performance status, haemoglobin level and number of organs with metastasis) in our previous study, radiotherapy for disease consolidation showed a marginal value (hazard ratio = 0.666, P = 0.0966), while metastasectomy remained significant (hazard ratio = 0.358, P = 0.0006). Conclusions In the selected patients, long-term disease control could be achieved after consolidative radiotherapy for metastatic urothelial carcinoma disease. Our observations suggest that local ablative therapy (surgery or radiotherapy) could facilitate long-term disease control. Howev