Laparoscopic renal cyst excision

Renal cystic failure generally does not require any form of treatment except in cases where a secondary obstruction of the excreting tract occurs, for persistent hypertension, when symptomatic pain persists or is complicated by infection or haemorrhage. Laparoscopic treatment of a renal cyst has proved to be a safe and efficacious therapy. We report our transperitoneal and retroperi-toneal experience with laparoscopic resection of simple renal cysts, between January 1992 and June 1995. We employed a transperitoneal approach for 10 patients and in eight cases a retroperitoneal access. No intraoperative complications were encountered in this series. In all patients blood loss was less than 100cc. With both approaches patients can be discharged between 24 and 72 h after the operation. At 6 month follow up, one recurrence was observed in the group of patients treated transperitoneally. Retroperitoneoscopy seems to be safer and easier compared to the transperitoneal technique.