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Surgery
Source: Kidney Cancer in Children (PDQ®)–Patient Version, National Cancer Institute.
Source updated: May 13, 2025 · Captured 2026-09-09.
Selected source text with whitespace normalised. This Triangle page is not an NCI PDQ summary. Independent clinical review is pending.
Context: Types of treatment for kidney cancer in children / Treatment options
Children with kidney cancer may have surgery to obtain a biopsy sample or to remove the cancer. There are two types of surgery used to treat kidney cancer:
Nephrectomy is surgery to remove the whole kidney. This surgery is the most common treatment for kidney cancer. Nearby lymph nodes may also be removed and checked for cancer. If the cancer is in both kidneys and they are not working well, your child may have a kidney transplant. A transplant is surgery to remove a kidney and replace it with one from a donor.
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Partial nephrectomy is the removal of the cancer in the kidney and a small amount of normal tissue around it. Your child may have this surgery if cancer is found in both kidneys or is likely to spread to both kidneys. The goal of the surgery is to keep as much of the kidney as possible. A partial nephrectomy is also called renal-sparing surgery.
After the doctor removes all the cancer that can be seen at the time of the surgery, your child may have chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or both to kill any cancer cells that are left. Sometimes after chemotherapy or radiation therapy, doctors will do a second-look surgery to see if cancer remains.
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Sometimes kidney cancer cannot be removed for one of these reasons:
the tumor is too close to important organs or blood vessels
the tumor is too large to remove
the cancer is in both kidneys, unless the tumors are very small
there is a blood clot in the vessels near the liver
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your child has trouble breathing because cancer has spread to the lungs
In this case, your child will have a biopsy first. Then they will receive chemotherapy to reduce the size of the tumor before surgery. The goal of this approach is to save as much healthy tissue as possible and reduce problems after surgery.
Preserved source evidence · Independent clinical review pending · Not medical advice