Spontaneous regression of pulmonary metastases and long-term survival of a patient with metastatic renal cell carcinoma, after immunostimulation with bacillus Calmette-Guérin and extirpation of brain and contralateral lung metastases.

A 52-year-old patient underwent left radical nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma and received adjuvant chemotherapy postoperatively with adriamycin and 5-fluoruracil. Twenty months afterwards he developed cerebral and multiple bilateral pulmonary metastases. The cerebral metastasis was excised and nonspecific immunostimulation with bacillus Calmette-Guérin was initiated. Two years later the other secondaries had scarcely grown and extirpation of the two right pulmonary metastases was undertaken. Few months afterwards the two left pulmonary nodules disappeared. The patient continues free of disease more than 5 years after nephrectomy and 16 months after regression of the lung metastases.