Choice of Surgical Options in Kidney Cancer and Surgical Complications

Surgical resection of renal cell carcinoma plays a large role in the overall management of the disease. The gold standard for surgical management historically has been open or laparoscopic radical nephrectomy, however, evidence of equivalent oncologic efficacy with improved clinical outcomes has driven the use of nephron-sparing surgeries, especially for smaller and localized renal tumors. A role for surgery remains in metastatic RCC as well, but controversy exists as to which patients may benefit most from surgical intervention in addition to other systemic targeted therapies. This article focuses specifically on renal cell carcinoma, transitional cell carcinoma is not described here.