Glansectomy as Primary Management of Penile Squamous Cell Carcinoma: An International Study Collaboration

To analyze the recurrence and survival outcomes of glansectomy in patients with penile squamous cell carcinoma.We performed a retrospective review of 410 patients across 5 international tertiary referral centers between 1999 and 2016. All patients had tumors involving the glans penis and underwent glansectomy as primary treatment. The Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test were used to calculate survival and recurrence. Median follow-up was 42 months (interquartile range [IQR] 29-56).The median age was 64 years (IQR 53-72). Median tumor size was 2.2 cm (IQR 1.5-3.0). A total of 240 patients (58.5%) had pT2 disease, whereas only 43 patients (10.5%) had pT3 or pT4 disease. The majority of the cohort had poorly differentiated tumors (43.7%). Most recurrences were local at 7.6% (31 patients). Only 14 patients (3.4%) had regional recurrence and 9 patients (2.2%) had distant recurrence. When stratified by pathologic stage, tumors that were pT2 or higher were (P .001) and were more likely to be poorly differentiated (P .001). There were no differences in recurrence location among pathologic stages (P = .15). The 1-, 2-, and 5-year recurrence-free survival were 98%, 94%, and 78%, respectively. There were no differences in overall survival when stratified by stage (P = .67).Glansectomy is an oncologically safe treatment modality for squamous cell carcinoma of the glans in appropriately selected invasive tumors.