Risk Group Systems for Penile Cancer Management: A Study of 203 Patients With Invasive Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of previously published risk group systems for predicting inguinal nodal metastases in patients with penile carcinoma.

Methods: Two hundred three cases of invasive penile squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) were stratified using the following systems: Solsona et al (J Urol 2001;165:1509), Hungerhuber et al (Urology 2006;68:621), and the system proposed by the European Association of Urology (EAU; Eur Urol 2004;46:1). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was carried out to compare accuracy in predicting final nodal status and cancer-related death.

Results: Most of cases were pT2/pT3 high-grade tumors with a small percentage of low-grade pT1 carcinomas. The metastatic rates for the Solsona et al, EAU, and Hungerhuber et al systems in the high-risk category were 15 of 73 (21%), 16 of 103 (16%), and 10 of 35 (29%) in patients with clinically negative inguinal lymph nodes and 52 of 75 (69%), 55 of 93 (59%), and 34 of 47 (72%) in patients with palpable inguinal lymph nodes, respectively. Performance by ROC analysis showed a low accuracy for all stratification systems although the Solsona et al and the Hungerhuber et al systems performed better than the EAU system. Patients in intermediate-risk categories and with clinically palpable inguinal lymph nodes were more likely to have nodal metastasis than patients with clinically negative lymph nodes in the same category.

Conclusions: These stratification systems may be useful for patients with low-grade superficial tumors and less accurate for evaluating patients with high-grade locally advanced penile carcinomas. These data may be useful for therapeutic planning of patients with penile SCC.