Renal cell carcinoma in Japanese children

Renal cell carcinoma in children is extremely rare compared to Wilms tumor. We report on a 7-year-old Japanese boy with left renal cell carcinoma. Since the disease was clinical stage I, nephrectomy with tumor extirpation was performed after a short course of initial chemotherapy had been administered. The patient is free of disease 3 years postoperatively. In a review of the Japanese literature we found 71 reports of renal cell carcinoma in children less than 15 years old. Mean patient age at occurrence was 8.1 years, there were no differences in regard to the sex or the affected side, and the most frequent symptom was the presence of a mass. We stress the early establishment of diagnosis in children with a persistent abdominal mass, hematuria and flank pain, since surgical treatment leads to a favorable prognosis only in the early stage of renal cell carcinoma.