Pulmonary metastasis of renal cell carcinoma resected sixteen years after nephrectomy.

A 50-year-old man underwent a left nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma of the clear cell type in February, 1978. He was examined using computed tomography in September, 1993, and was found to have a small coin lesion in his right lung. A fine needle aspiration biopsy failed to disclose any tumor cells. He underwent a video-assisted thoracoscopic biopsy of the right lung in February, 1994, 16 years after his nephrectomy. The resected specimen contained a coin lesion measuring approximately 1 cm in diameter, and the lesion was microscopically diagnosed as a renal cell carcinoma of the clear cell type metastatic to the lung. The patient is doing well with no signs of re-recurrence six months after the resection of the metastatic lesion. To our knowledge, the time interval between his nephrectomy and resection of the metastatic lesion is the longest ever reported in Japan.