[Partial nephrectomy for renal tumors]

We performed partial nephrectomy in 5 patients with renal tumors. In 1 patient with synchronous bilateral renal cell carcinoma, radical nephrectomy was conducted simultaneously for the contralateral kidney. The second patient had a transitional cell carcinoma of the renal pelvis of the contralateral side, for which the pelvis was resected simultaneously. In the remaining 3 patients the contralateral kidney was normal. In these patients the tumor was less than 3.0 cm in size and localized in either the upper pole or peripheral region, for which partial nephrectomy was performed. The weight of the resected kidney ranged 6 to 35 g with a mean of 18.2 g. The tumor size was 1.8 to 4.0 cm, the mean being 2.4 cm. Tumor grading was renal cell carcinoma grade 1 in 2 patients, grade 2 in 2 patients and oncocytoma in one patient. In all patients the tumor was encapsulated with a pseudocapsule with no involvement of the perinephric fat, venous or regional lymph nodes, and the tumor was diagnosed as pT2V0N0M0, stage I. In none of the patients intraoperative or postoperative complications developed with renal function of the operated kidney normal. The follow up interval after the operation was 5 years in 1 patients and 6 months to 1 year and 2 months in the remaining 4 patients. All patients have survived without metastasis or local recurrence in the operated kidney. We believe that partial nephrectomy is worth performing in selected patients with renal cell carcinoma not only in those having lesion in solitary kidney or bilateral kidneys but also in those whose function of the contralateral kidney is normal.