Adjuvant immunotherapy in renal cell carcinoma--comparison of interferon alpha treatment with an untreated control.

Background: Adjuvant immunotherapy of RCC with interferon alpha is still controversial. It was the aim of this study to investigate, whether a selected group of patients with a non-metastatic RCC can profit from this therapy.

Methods: Survival data of 125 patients with a non-metastatic RCC, who underwent a tumor-nephrectomy were analyzed retrospectively, 33 of these patients received an adjuvant immunotherapy with interferon alpha for 1 year. All tumors were classified by the TNM-system. Statistical evaluation was performed by the Kaplan-Meier-Method and the logrank-test.

Results: Tumor stage was seen to be an important prognostic factor in RCC with a significantly better outcome in pT2- as compared to pT3-tumors. Tumor grading was without any prognostic relevance. Adjuvant interferon alpha therapy had no effect on overall survival. After separation of the patients into pT2- and pT3/4-tumors again interferon alpha showed no significant benefit for one of the 2 groups.

Conclusions: The adjuvant therapy with interferon alpha shows no significant benefit in the treatment of non-metastatic RCC. Tumor stage is no suitable factor to select a group of patients, who might profit from an interferon alpha therapy. Further studies are necessary to isolate better selection factors.