[Pathologic analysis of upper tract urothelial carcinomas: state of the art review for the yearly scientific report of the French National Association of Urology].

PURPOSE

Upper tract urothelial carcinomas (UTUC) are rare tumors. Pathologist have a crucial role in establishing the diagnosis and the evaluation of the prognosis of these tumors.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A systematic review of the scientific literature was performed in the Medline database (PubMed) using different associations of the following key words alone or concomittantly: ureter; renal pelvis; urothelial carcinoma; specimen; pathology; histology; classification; grade; stage; prognosis. A particular search was done on the characteristics of the specimen management provided by urologists to pathologists and main prognostic specificities expected in UTUCs.

RESULTS

Urinary cytology and biopsies are useful to provide the grade of the tumor according to the WHO classification 2004. The urologist needs to depict the clinical context to the pathologist in order to eliminate differential diagnosis. The main prognostic informations provided by the pathologist from the specimen analysis are the following: stage (TNM 2009), grade (WHO 2004), carcinoma in situ, location within upper tract, multifocality, necrosis, tumor size, lymphovascular invasion, margins and potentially microsatellite status when a HNPCC case is suspected.

CONCLUSION

The pathologic analysis of a UTUC specimen needs nowadays to fulfill standardised international criteria of quality. However, specific additional aspects reported in the literature (e.g., lymphovascular invasion) are not systematically depicted.