Comparison of Demographic and Histomorphologic Features of Renal Cell Carcinoma: One-year Experience in a Quaternary Care Centre in South India

Introduction: The incidence and mortality of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are increasing across different socioeconomic statuses, with 2% of all cancer cases globally. Data on the clinical spectrum and morphological characterisation of the tumour is limited from India. Aim: This study was carried out to analyse the clinicopathological profile of RCC cases from our hospital, a quaternary care referral centre in south India. Materials and Methods: The study design was a retrospective observational study conducted in the Department of Histopathology, Apollo Hospital, Chennai, India, from January 2022 to December 2022. We included all radical and partial nephrectomy cases during the study period with the diagnosis of RCC. Relevant clinical details and intraoperative findings were retrieved from the electronic medical records. Nephrectomy performed for non-neoplastic reasons, urothelial malignancies and mesenchymal neoplasms of the kidneys were excluded. Results: During the study duration, 116 patients were diagnosed with RCC with a median age of 53 and male preponderance with 72.4% of cases. Clear cell RCC was the major histologic type (83.6% of cases), followed by papillary RCC (7.8%). Lymphovascular invasion within the nephrectomy specimen was observed in 16 cases (13.8% of cases), and 4 patients (3.4%) presented with regional lymph node involvement. Conclusion: Clear cell RCC was our study group’s major subtype of RCC. Partial nephrectomy constituted 34 cases with a mean tumour size of 3.89 cm, of which only 8.82% had pathological pT3a at presentation. This audit offers baseline data on the epidemiology, stage at presentation and histomorphological features of RCC at our centre.