Clinicopathological Profile of Renal Cancer in a Caribbean Hospital: Analysis of a Surgical Case Series

Objective To document the demographic and pathological profile of renal cancer at San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH), Trinidad and Tobago over a five-year period (2015-2019). Methods This is a retrospective study that was conducted on all patients who had a histological diagnosis of renal cancer with surgical treatment from 2015-2019 at SFGH. Data were collected on patient demographics, clinical presentation, and pathological characteristics such as cancer size, location, and grade. Data were tabulated on Microsoft Excel and results were summarized using descriptive statistics. Results Over a 5-year period, there were 42 patients diagnosed with kidney cancer who had surgical intervention. The age ranged from 18 to 81 years with a mean age of 61 years and 67% of patients were over the age of 60. Males consisted of 57% of all patients. Most patients presented with pain, hematuria, or both. The majority (93%) of the patients had radical surgical treatment with equal distribution of right and left tumors. Clear cell carcinoma is the most common renal cell carcinoma (RCC), accounting for 80.5% followed by papillary with 16.7%. The majority of renal cell tumors were Fuhrman grade 2 with negative surgical margins and no lymphovascular invasion. The average maximum tumor dimension was 4.2 cm. Conclusions This study shows that in our hospital renal cancer affects primarily older patients, mostly men with the common presentation of pain and hematuria. The tumors are commonly clear cell RCC, grade 2 with negative margins, no lymphovascular invasion, and an average maximum dimension of 4.2 cm.