Laparoscopic unroofing of a renal cyst

Excision of a renal cyst via the flank approach results in a painful postoperative recovery requiring several days of hospitalization. We used laparoscopy in a selected patient to unroof a large complex renal cyst. The technique could optimally be used for simple cysts. The procedure was minimally traumatic, morbidity was negligible and the patient was discharged from the hospital the morning after the operation. After a 6-month followup, we believe that this laparoscopic technique is a significant advance in urological surgical management and may be better indicated for symptomatic, recurrent, simple renal cysts.