New and
Noteworthy
A growing number of patients with kidney cancer are candidates for
kidney-sparing surgery, said Dr. Paul Russo, a surgeon in MSKCC’s
Department of Urology. Thanks to advances in diagnostic imaging, more and more
kidney tumors are detected at early stages, when they are 4 cm and smaller. To
determine which patients are best suited to kidney-sparing surgery, MSKCC
physicians use information gathered in a database that charts the course of
disease in more than 1,000 patients. Before the advent of this procedure--which
leaves the healthy portion of the kidney intact, thereby preserving its
function--surgeons removed the entire kidney, still the norm in most parts of
the country. Kidney-sparing surgery accounts for 40 percent of kidney operations
at MSKCC.
