[Treatment of Wilms' tumor in children]

During the last 13 years, the Kaohsiung Medical College Hospital has treated a total of nine patients with nephroblastoma (Wilms' tumor). Among them, six were male and three were female. The age of the patients ranged from 7 months to 11 years old with an average of 3.25 years. 88.9 percent of the patients complained of abdominal mass. However, the initial symptom was gross hematuria in 33.3% of the patients. Seven out of the nine patients underwent simple nephrectomy while the remaining two were treated with the more conservative open biopsy. All patients died within three years of initial treatment except two, who never came back for follow-up treatment and whom we were unable to trace to determine whether they had survived. Nevertheless, the combination of surgery and postoperative chemotherapy helped to prolong the life of patients with Wilms' tumors.