Zhong W, et al. – The standard diagnosis and treatment procedures of primary small cell carcinoma (SCC) had been studied in the institution. In addition, the clinicopathologic characteristics, treatments and outcomes of patients with primary ureteral SCC were discussed. With aggressive natural history and poor prognosis, ureteral SCCs were extremely rare neoplasms. For management, a multimodality treatment was recommended.

Methods

• This study entailed patients diagnosed with ureteral SCC in Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China, from January 2007 to December 2016.
• A systematic literature review, in October 2016, on case reports and case series of ureteral SCC, was conducted.
• Analysis was done for the clinicopathologic characteristics, treatments and outcomes of this rare disease.

Results

• This analysis (4 cases from the institution and 28 cases from the literature) incorporated 32 patients.
• With an average age of 66.6 years (range 48–80 years), most patients (71.0%) were male, and hematuria (n=14, 48.3%) and flank pain (n=14, 48.3%) were the most common symptoms.
• Surgery was performed for all patients, with 12 (37.5%) patients undergoing multimodality therapy.
• Only 1 patient had bladder recurrence, among 11 patients who developed regional or distant recurrences.
• With 1- and 3-year survival rates of 51.9% and 30.3%, the overall median survival of the patients was 17 months.
• Female (P=0.009), pure SCC (P=0.03) and advanced T stage (P=0.04) were associated with worse overall survival, in a univariate analysis.