Renal tumor ablation

— Let's start by defining the purpose of each operation.Essentially, both removing a kidney tumor and radical removal of the kidney itself with the tumor aim to rid the patient of the tumor. Now, let's imagine a situation where a person is diagnosed with kidney cancer but, due to various reasons, we cannot perform surgery. For example, because of accompanying conditions that prevent anesthesia. Or, let's say, the patient has a tumor in the only kidney — clearly, removing this kidney is not an option. Just a few years ago, a surgeon faced a choice of either subjecting the patient to an extremely risky operation or doing nothing at all. Now, in such cases, renal tumor ablation comes to our aid.

Renal tumor ablationis the destruction of tumor tissue using various types of energy: cold (cryoablation), heat (radiofrequency ablation), or ultrasound (HIFU).

At the Dilanyan Clinical Center,we use radiofrequency ablation.

This method involves inserting a special needle-electrode (ablator) into the center of the kidney tumor and heating it to 90 degrees. Essentially, this kills the tumor tissue around the electrode within a distance of up to 4 cm without damaging the healthy kidney tissue. For the insertion of the needle-electrode, we use an expert-class ultrasound machine from BK-Medical, which allows very precise positioning of the area affected by the tumor. Thus, we achieve the goal of destroying the kidney tumor without incisions and with minimal surgical aggression.

Therefore, among the advantages of kidney tumor ablation, we can highlight minimal trauma, the possibility of its use in patients with contraindications to standard surgeries, and in patients with a single kidney.

— Renal tumor ablation is a relatively new treatment method. Currently, the European Association of Urology recommends using ablation only in cases where radical surgery is not possible due to age, accompanying diseases, the presence of tumors in both kidneys, or having a tumor in the only kidney. It is important to understand that renal tumor ablation is a less radical approach than surgery. However, according to European researchers, this method often achieves disease-free survival, in other words, it can defeat the tumor. The safety of renal tumor ablation, absence of access trauma, short anesthesia time, or even the absence of anesthesia — these are the advantages that allow us to offer this technique for kidney cancer treatment.

— There are two contraindications for performing kidney tumor ablation: firstly, it is extremely severe patient condition, such as sepsis; secondly, it is severe disorders of the blood clotting system (coagulopathies).