Tissue-sparing surgery offers patients with kidney cancer the same survival odds but a much lower risk of developing kidney failure than patients who have a kidney removed.
In last month's Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers reported on outcomes of 164 patients who underwent radical nephrectomy and 164 patients who received nephron-sparing surgery between 1966 and 1999. At the time they were diagnosed, all patients in the study had normal kidney function with cancer detected in only one kidney. At the most recent follow-up, 77% who underwent radical nephrectomy and 79% who had nephron-sparing surgery were alive and disease-free. But after 10 years of follow-up, 22% who had radical surgery developed chronic renal failure compared with 11% who had the tissue-sparing procedure.
"Patients whose kidneys fail experience a significant decrease in quality of life," said Horst Zincke, MD, the study's principal investigator. "Treating kidney failure also places a financial . . . [Full Text of this Article]
