[Primary retroperitoneal tumours (author's transl)].

Mean duration from symptoms to diagnosis in 87 patients with primary retroperitoneal tumour was 4.8 months for malignant tumour (67 patients), 18.1 months for benign tumour (20). The cardinal symptoms were palpable abdominal mass (68%), feeling of fullness and nausea (64%), as well as ill-defined abdominal pain (55%). Radiological diagnosis, especially selective angiography, provided important pointers to the global diagnosis of "retroperitoneal tumour". Small-needle biopsy, guided by ultrasound, has now become available in the pre-operative diagnosis of the type and malignancy of these tumours. After radical resection of 30 malignant tumours there was a mean survival time of, so far, 30.2 months. Results were worse with palliative malignant-tumour removal in 25 patients, at an average of 17.3 months. Survival time was only 4.8 months for 29 patients declared inoperable. In individual instances cytostatic treatment achieved an increase in survival time of up to 12 years.