Clinical study of nephron-sparing surgery for renal cell carcinoma

From January 1995 to June 2001, we performed nephron-sparing surgery (NSS) on 47 patients with renal cell carcinoma. The indication was imperative for 10 patients, but elective for 37 patients. Moreover, we performed renal scintigraphy for the quantitative measurement of postoperative residual renal function in 14 elective cases. Most of the patients were operated on uneventfully, although we experienced postoperative hematoma and urinoma among the elective cases. There were two local recurrences among the imperative cases at median follw-up of 780 days and one incidence of regional lymph node metastasis among the elective cases at median follow-up of 724 days. Postoperative renal scintigraphy showed well-preserved renal function of the operated kidney in all except for 2 cases. The acceptable oncological and functional outcomes support the validity of NSS for treating small renal cell carcinoma in patients with a normal contralateral kidney.