Follow-Up Study of Kidney Cancer Patients

Previously we proposed to conduct a follow-up study of kidney cancer in the high risk region of Central and Eastern Europe. This study was conducted through the follow-up of a group of patients with kidney cancer, that were previously enrolled in the study entitled, Occupation, Genetic Susceptibility Kidney Cancer: Central European Case-Controls Study, PI Dr. Wong-Ho Chow, OEEB, DCEG, NCI, protocol No 01-C-NO63, a study for which field work and data analyses of the case control study were completed. We had originally planned to conduct the follow-up study in seven centers in four countries, including Romania, Poland, Russia, and the Czech Republic. In each center, cancer-related information was to be extracted from vital statistics, cancer registry, and/or medical records. For deceased patients, next-of-kin were to be interviewed using a brief questionnaire.

A pilot study was conducted to determine the feasibility of collecting survival information including 5-year survival status, date of death, cause of death, and date of last follow-up if alive from 220 cases across the seven collaborating centers. The feasibility of extracting additional data including surgical and medical treatment procedures used to treat primary disease, the recurrence and progression of primary disease was also determined. However, based on results obtained from the pilot study, we determined that it is feasible to collect follow-up data from kidney cancer cases from four centers in the Czech Republic and one center in both Poland and Russia.

Medical records/archives for Romanian cases were located in hospitals that were completely destroyed during reconstruction therefore, it was impossible to collect any information from this subset of patients. Exclusion of these records will not affect study power since most of the cases were from the Czech Republic. The objective of our proposed study remains the same:( 1) to assess the 5-year survival status of kidney cancer patients in the Central and Easter European Renal Cell Carcinoma Study; (2) to examine prevalence of recurrent disease and progression; (3) to investigate additional patient-tumor-and genetic determinant of 5-year survival in cases.