Elective partial nephrectomy is equivalent to radical nephrectomy in patients with clinical T1 renal cell carcinoma: results of a retrospective, comparative, multi-institutional study.

Study Type - Therapy (cohort) Level of Evidence 2b What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? Few studies supported the expanded indications for nephron-sparing surgery (NSS) in selected patients with 4.1 cm renal tumours in the size range (T1b). However, all these comparative studies included both imperative and elective partial nephrectomy and patient selection for analysis was based on pathological stage (pT1) and not on clinical stage (cT1). Patients with clinically organ-confined RCC (cT1) who are candidates for elective PN have a limited risk of clinical understaging. NSS is not associated with an increased risk of recurrence and cancer-specific mortality both in cT1a a…