Perioperative Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells in Radical or Partial Nephrectomy for Renal Cell Carcinoma

Background The current study was conducted to clarify the frequency of systemic circulating tumor cells (CTCs) appearing after surgery for renal cell carcinoma and to evaluate the differences in postoperative CTCs between different surgical procedures. Methods This prospective, cohort study included 60 consecutive patients who underwent laparoscopic radical nephrectomy (RN) ( n = 22), laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (PN) ( n = 19), open RN ( n = 8), or open PN ( n = 11). In this study CTCs were measured by the FISHMAN-R system, and CTCs drawn from a peripheral artery were collected just before and immediately after surgery. The number of pre- and postoperative CTCs and the perioperative changes in CTCs were measured for each surgical method. Results Six patients were excluded from the current analyses. Preoperative CTCs did not differ significantly by surgical approach (laparoscopic RN: 3.4 ± 4.2; laparoscopic PN: 3.4 ± 4.1; open RN: 7.7 ± 6.8; open PN: 6.0 ± 7.6; P = 0.19). Open RN resulted in a significantly greater number of postoperative CTCs (laparoscopic RN: 4.8 ± 3.7; laparoscopic PN: 7.9 ± 9.1; open RN: 22.5 ± 26.3; open PN: 6.4 ± 6.3; P