[Surgical treatment of renal cell carcinoma].

The concept of surgical treatment of renal cell carcinoma was discussed by classifying the procedures into four categories: 1) radical nephrectomy; 2) nephron sparing surgery such as partial nephrectomy and enucleation for small renal cancer detected incidentally by ultrasonography and CT; 3) extended surgery for cases having IVC tumor thrombus or with invasion of neighboring organs; and 4) surgery for metastatic disease. Consequently, details of surgical procedure were not presented in this paper. Nephron sparing surgery and laparoscopy will be important steps in the future direction of surgery for renal cell carcinoma.