Clinical aspects and assessment of renal oncocytomas

: Oncocytomas represent a special category of renal tumors which can be clearly separated from the renal cell carcinomas by their typical histological presentation as well as by their clinical course. A clear cut preoperative diagnosis based on sonography, CT and angiography, however, is not yet possible. Between 1981 and 1990 16 patients (4 men, 12 women) with a mean age of 65 years underwent a radical tumor nephrectomy, with the histopathological diagnosis of an oncocytic adenoma, whose clinical and pathomorphological parameters were completely evaluated. Oncocytomas are rare, although increasingly found, tumors of the kidney with a benign clinical course. Up to date the treatment for these tumors has been nephrectomy, only rarely extirpation.