Ureteral tumours showing a worse prognosis than renal pelvis tumours may be attributed to ureteral tumours more likely to have hydronephrosis and less likely to have haematuria.

PURPOSE: To demonstrate the relationships among tumour location, hydronephrosis, and tumour stage in patients with Upper Urinary Tract Urothelial Carcinoma (UUT-UC). Moreover, we want to determine whether primary tumour location is an independent predictor of prognosis in those patients.
METHODS: Retrospective analysis of 251 UUT-UC patients from our centre treated with radical nephroureterectomy between 2000 and 2010. Patients who had previous radical cystectomy, preoperative chemotherapy, previous contralateral UUT-UC, multifocal tumours, or metastatic disease at presentation were excluded. Overall, 217 patients were then available for evaluation. The relationships among tumour location, hydronephrosis, and tumour stage were analysed. Tumour location was categorized as renal pelvis or ureter. Progression-free survival (PFS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) probabilities were estimated using Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses.
RESULTS: Tumour location was renal pelvis in 146 cases (67 %), ureter in 71 cases (33 %). Median follow-up was 52 months. Compared with renal pelvic tumours, ureteral tumours were more likely to have hydronephrosis and to be associated with advanced stages (p < 0.001), but less likely to have haematuria. The 5-year CSS estimate was 79.3 % for renal pelvic tumours and 64.7 % for ureteral tumours (p = 0.03). The 5-year PFS probability was 68.7 % for renal pelvic tumours and 54.2 % for ureteral tumours (p = 0.02). On univariable and multivariable analysis, tumour location was an independent prognostic factor for CSS (p < 0.05).
CONCLUSIONS: Ureteral tumours were associated with a worse prognosis than renal pelvis tumours. The possible hypothesis may be due partially to that ureteral tumours are more likely to have hydronephrosis and less likely to have haematuria.