Indications for Conservative Parenchymal Surgery for Kidney Tumours, Particularly Renal Carcinoma

Abstract

It is only occasionally that kidney resection has been performed in cases of renal tumour on other grounds than the finding of a tumour in a solitary kidney or in both kidneys. A retrospective study has been performed on a consecutive series of 89 cases with a solid expansive process in the kidney, in order to see whether conservative parenchymal surgery is a real problem in renal tumours. It was found that kidney resection had been performed in 10%—even when the lesion was benign and when a malignant tumour had been found in one of a pair of kidneys. Resection should have been performed in two additional cases. The study indicates that the preoperative assessment must include factors connected with the tumour itself, as well as with both kidneys, before deciding on nephrectomy.