Background: Renal oncocytoma has been repeatedly reported in Western countries, but only a few cases have been reported in Eastern countries. This study aims to review the clinical course of renal oncocytoma in an Eastern country such as Taiwan.
Materials and methods: Sixteen cases of renal oncocytoma seen between 1987 and 2002 at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, were studied.
Results: Preoperatively, all patients were diagnosed to have renal cell carcinoma, following various radiologic studies. Perioperatively, frozen sections of three patients indicated renal oncocytoma in two and renal cell carcinoma in one. Renal oncocytoma has marked similarities to renal cell carcinoma, according to various radiologic, cytologic, and pathological investigations, so an accurate diagnosis is difficult to achieve, either preoperatively or perioperatively. Therefore, rather than being treated with partial nephrectomy, all patients were treated aggressively with unilateral radical nephrectomy. Postoperatively, all 16 patients were followed up, from 12 to 189 months, with a mean of 58.7 months. Notably, all patients survived with no evidence of tumor recurrence.
Conclusions: The experience in Taiwan is generally that renal oncocytoma behaves benignly, as reported in other areas. The excellent prognosis associated with this tumor appears to indicate that partial nephrectomy may suffice for removing the tumor, while sparing other unaffected renal parenchyma.