Treatment of bilateral Wilms’ tumor in children: how to improve the application of nephron-sparing surgery

To summarize the experience of nephron-sparing surgery (NSS) for bilateral Wilms tumors (BWT) in children.

This study included children with BWT admitted to our hospital between January 2008 and June 2022. The details of the treatments and outcomes were analyzed.

In all, 70 patients (39 males and 31 females) were enrolled, including 66 patients with synchronous tumors and 4 patients with metachronous tumors. The median age at diagnosis was 13 (3–75) months. Overall, 59 patients received preoperative chemotherapy and 45.8% (54/118) of the 118 sides of WT achieved a partial response (PR). Of the 70 patients, 48 (68.6%) underwent bilateral NSS and 22 (31.4%) underwent unilateral NSS and contralateral total nephrectomy. The proportion of bilateral NSS in the preoperative chemotherapy group was significantly higher than in the non-chemotherapy group (P = 0.031). Additionally, there were 26, 25, 14, and 5 cases of stage I, stage II, stage III, and stage IV, respectively. Among the 70 children, 16 had a recurrence, and 8 died. The 4 years EFS and OS were 67.9% and 89.3%, respectively.

The long-term survival rates of patients with BWT improved. Hence, preoperative chemotherapy should be administered to enhance the use of NSS in BWT.