Perioperative morbidity and renal function in young and elderly patients undergoing elective nephron-sparing surgery or radical nephrectomy for renal tumours larger than 4 cm

Objective To analyse renal function, perioperative morbidity and overall survival (OS) in patients aged 65 years treated by radical nephrectomy (RN) or elective nephron-sparing surgery (NSS) for renal tumours > 4 cm. Patients and methods From our database, we identified 829 patients with renal tumours > 4 cm treated by either RN (n = 641) or NSS (n= 188) at our institution between 1981 and 2007. After excluding patients with imperative indication and metastases, we identified retrospectively 81 patients aged 65 years (elderly patients) treated for renal tumours > 4 cm. In all, 36 and 33 patients underwent NSS and 45 and 52 patients underwent RN in the young and elderly group, respectively. …