Recently more conservative surgery of renal cell carcinoma is being performed. Patients with small, low-grade and low-stage tumors can be treated by enucleation or partial nephrectomy and will have about the same cure rate as those patients who were treated before by radical nephrectomy. Six patients, who would have been candidates for chronic dialysis, underwent enucleation or partial nephrectomy. Three of them had Stage I, and three had Stage II renal cell carcinomas. Patients were followed up 6 to 52 months (average 34) after surgery, and no local recurrence or distant metastases were found. It has recently been recognized that not every patient with renal cell carcinoma requires radical nephrectomy. Renal parenchyma can be saved without a decline in effective control of the tumor or a change in prognosis.