Surgical management of renal cell carcinoma at the Vancouver General Hospital: 20-year review.

Over a 20-year period 143 patients with renal cell carcinoma were treated surgically at the Vancouver General Hospital. The results of simple nephrectomy are compared to those of radical nephrectomy. The authors conclude that radical nephrectomy (including node dissection) is a useful staging procedure but provides little or no long-term therapeutic benefit over simple nephrectomy. They stress the need for new adjunctive therapy.