Metastasectomy in patients with renal cell carcinoma: when and how?

The role of metastasectomy in the management of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) remains controversial. The aim of this review is to summarize and evaluate the recent findings about the surgical treatment of patients with mRCC focusing on the literature published in the last 2 years.

Despite the lack of randomized controlled trials, the benefit of metastasectomy in term of cancer-specific and overall survival have been demonstrated in large observational studies. Results of ongoing clinical trials evaluating the impact of combination of surgical and systemic therapies are eagerly awaited and may shed the light on a new treatment armamentarium in this subset of patients.

Several novel systemic agents have emerged and is continuously changing the treatment paradigm in patients with advanced RCC. However, surgical resection of the primary tumor and metastatic deposits represents a definitive cure option in well selected patients.