BACKGROUND:

kidney cancer is the most lethal urologic neoplasia, representing 2-3% of all malignant neoplasias in the adult. 30-40% of the patients with renal cell cancer die from the disease. Survival outcome and management are dependent on initial clinical stage. There are also other histologic, anatomic, and molecular outcome factors.

OBJECTIVE:

to describe the clinical characteristics of kidney cancer, its treatment, outcome factors, and histology, and to compare two population groups: one private and one public.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

a descriptive and comparative study was conducted on the clinical stage and histologic characteristics of kidney cancer in two different populations from the same geographic zone, within the time frame of January 2008 and March 2014. Study variables: sex, age, population group, TNM, histology, and adrenal gland invasion. The SPSS (Chicago II) version 22 program was used to carry out the comparative analysis. The Mann-Whitney U test and the chi-square test were employed in the descriptive analysis of the variables of the two groups.

RESULTS:

a sample of 93 patients diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma underwent radical or partial nephrectomy. Twenty-nine patients were seen at a public hospital and 64 at a private hospital. The mean age of the patients was 60 years. The results of the Fuhrman nuclear grade comparison were similar, with no statistically significant differences.

CONCLUSIONS:

the present study showed no statistically significant differences in the clinical presentation, histopathologic characteristics, and treatment of kidney cancer between patients seen at a public hospital and those seen at a private hospital.