The Fuhrman grading system has no prognostic value in patients with nonsarcomatoid chromophobe renal cell carcinoma.

The prognostic value of the Fuhrman nuclear grading system has been questioned for chromophobe renal cell carcinoma (chRCC) because this subtype frequently displays nuclear and nucleolar pleomorphism. The present study reevaluates this grading system in a series of patients with nonsarcomatoid chRCC. We identified 176 patients (3.6%) with nonsarcomatoid chRCC in a total of 4897 patients who underwent surgery for renal cell carcinoma at 5 centers in Germany between 1990 and 2010. The mean follow-up was 51.1 months. The 3 groups (G1 versus G2 versus G3/4) were comparable in terms of age, sex, tumor diameter, and lymph node metastasis. They only differed significantly in tumor stage (P = .01) …