Kidney cancer patients do not necessarily have to have their kidneys removed

When it comes to kidney cancer, many people believe that radical surgery to remove the kidney and surrounding tissues is the only reliable method. However, for patients with solitary kidney, bilateral kidney tumors, or contralateral kidney damage, removing the kidney where the tumor is located will mean facing adverse consequences such as renal insufficiency and uremia after surgery, which will seriously affect the quality of life, often leaving patients with a dilemma.

With the increase of people's awareness of health examinations and the development of imaging technology, the detection rate of asymptomatic incidental renal cancer has been greatly improved compared with the past. Many studies have shown that for some early-stage, small (less than 4 cm in diameter) renal cancers located on the surface of the kidney, renal unit-preserving renal cancer surgery can be performed, which only removes the tumor and the surrounding 5 mm of renal tissue, preserving the remaining normal renal units to the greatest extent. And there is no significant difference in postoperative survival rate, local recurrence rate, and distant metastasis rate compared with radical nephrectomy.

With the development of laparoscopic technology, laparoscopic partial nephrectomy has been widely used in the clinical treatment of renal cancer. Laparoscopic partial nephrectomy can be divided into two types: transperitoneal and retroperitoneal. Among them, retroperitoneal laparoscopic partial nephrectomy is suitable for tumors on the dorsal and posterior sides of the kidney; the transperitoneal approach has a large operating space and clear anatomical layers, which is conducive to the removal of renal cancer located on the ventral side and deeply invading the renal parenchyma.