Open versus mini-invasive partial and radical nephrectomy complications: results from the French national health database.

Background: Laparoscopic surgery is associated with a lower morbidity than open surgery. No recent data compared kidney cancer surgery in the French population using the National Health Insurance database (PMSI-MCO).

Aims: We explore and compare the surgical morbidity rates between laparoscopic and open laparotomy for kidney cancer.

Methods: The initial length of stay and complications parameters during the three postoperative months were described for renal cancer in every French center in 2018. We compared Relative Risks (RR [95% CI]) between laparoscopic and open surgery for both radical and partial nephrectomy.

Results: Among 8,162 patients, 3,525 had a radical nephrectomy, 978 open, 2,547 laparoscopic surgeries; 4,637 patients had partial nephrectomies, 1,778 open 2,859 laparoscopic surgeries. For radical surgery, the most common complications were urinary infections (7.8%), acute renal failure (8.9%), sepsis (8.4%), bleeding (9.3%), and postoperative anemia (5.9%); the RR for laparoscopic versus open surgery were respectively 0.68 [0.54;0.86], 0.71 [0.57;0.88], 0.69 [0.55;0.86], 0.83 [0.66;1.03], 0.56 [0.43;0.73]. For partial nephrectomies, the most common complications were urinary infections (7.7%), bleeding (11.6%), and postoperative anemia (5.8%), with RR of 0.71 [0.58;0.87], 0.61 [0.52;0.71], and 0.64 [0.51;0.81]. The mean length of stay was 7.7 for open radical nephrectomy, 6.3 for laparoscopic radical nephrectomy, 7.5 for open partial nephrectomy, and 5 for laparoscopic partial nephrectomy.

Conclusions: The laparoscopic approach had fewer postoperative complications and a shorter length of stay than open surgery for partial and radical nephrectomy. The PMSI analysis provided an exhaustive description of surgical practice for kidney cancer and surgical complications in France.

Clinical trial number: Not applicable.