Revisiting angiomyolipomas: The significance of a rich blood supply on imaging for risk-adapted decision making.

Abstract

Purpose: Active surveillance is the preferred management for most renal angiomyolipomas (AMLs) but no risk-adapted follow-up strategy has been established. We aimed to assess the dynamics associated with hemorrhagic complications (HC) and tumor growth (TG) at long-term follow-up of AMLs.

Materials and methods: A single-center retrospective study was conducted, enrolling patients with an AML diagnosed by computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging. Kaplan-Meier analyses were performed to estimate HC risk and multivariate logistic regression analyses were carried out to evaluate predictors of TG and HC.

Results: A total of 150 patients were included. The median follow-up was 64.5 months (interquartile range [IQR] 25-102). Median tumor size at diagnosis was 14 mm (IQR 8-26). During follow-up, 12 patients (8.0%) required selective angioembolization, including 6 in whom the procedure was urgent due to spontaneous bleeding. At 5 years of follow-up, we found a 4.5% risk of HC and 3.6% of patients had a clinically significant growth rate of ≥3 mm/year. The existence of a rich blood supply (odds ratio [OR] 11.10, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.68-23.54), and the size of AMLs at diagnosis (OR 1.02, 95% CI 1.01-1.04) were predictors for HC.

Conclusions: Renal AMLs have a minimal size progression and a very low risk of HC, allowing use of active surveillance as a first-line approach. Imaging features, such as the existence of a rich blood supply, could be useful in identifying patients at higher risk of bleeding for the purpose of risk-adapted decision making.