Urologic oncology
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In light of the aging population and the high incidence of urologic malignancies in the elderly in the United States, we review issues surrounding radical urologic surgery in the elderly. Specifically, we examine the safety, efficacy, techniques, and special concerns related to elderly patients. We found in multiple series that well selected, elderly patients can safely undergo major, extirpative urologic surgery with acceptable morbidity, comparable to their younger counterparts. Tools, such as the ASA score, Karnofsky index, and Charlson index may help guide patient selection and counseling.
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The objective of this study was to retrospectively investigate clinical outcomes of combined immunotherapy with interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) and low-dose interleukin-2 (IL-2) in Japanese patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC). This study included a total of 52 patients with metastatic RCC who were treated by combined immunotherapy with IFN-alpha and low-dose IL-2 following radical nephrectomy. These patients received a subcutaneous injection of IFN-alpha (5 to 6 million U/d) three times per week and intravenous injection of IL-2 (1.4 million U/d) twice per week. ⋯ Furthermore, cancer-specific survival was significantly associated with performance status, presence of metastases at diagnosis, metastatic organ and CRP level on univariate analysis; however, only performance status and presence of metastases at diagnosis appeared to be independent predictors of cancer-specific death by multivariate analysis. Toxicities related to this therapy were generally mild and tolerable, limited to World Health Organization (WHO) grade 1 or 2 in the majority of patients. Collectively, these findings suggest that combined immunotherapy with IFN-alpha and low-dose IL-2 could achieve comparatively acceptable oncological outcomes in patients with metastatic RCC; however, other therapeutic options should be considered in patients with unfavorable performance status and/or those positive for metastatic diseases at diagnosis.