Editorial comment. Biopsy provides useful diagnostic information and should become an integral part of the diagnosis and management of small renal masses.

摘要

The results of this article confirm previous reports that 20%-30% of small renal masses undergoing surgical extirpation are benign, suggesting that unnecessary surgery is performed in a significant proportion of cases. Most worrisome is that the rate of benign tumors is increasing.1 It would be unheard of to remove a prostate, let alone treat a patient with metastatic prostate cancer without a previous biopsy diagnosis of cancer and the same is true for bladder masses. Why are renal tumors different? Why are we willing to operate on 20% of patients with benign disease and yet unwilling to treat other urologic cancers in a similar manner? Why are we unwilling to biopsy small renal masses?