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Perry,

You are already at the best Medical facility in Alabama.  I visited a patiet there in the late 70's.

Mine was a full neph almost 16 years ago before they had cyro or partials. From reading this board over the years I have seen morre than a few posts complaining abour cyro. On the otherhand a partial is still major surgery when you are 65 years young. I am almost 10 years older now. As  far as your prognosis you should be able to live to your normal life expectancy with such a small tulor being removed  Don't get too hung up on the growth as the CT is 3 dimensional with less than perfect accurack a5mm is a very small measurement. Sending good karma for your journey.

icemantoo

You've been given 2 diagnoses of cancer.. 1 was enough for me. I had a full Neph with 1 choice available. The surgery was not fun but not as bad as I had imagined if you choose surgery. I think the decision you make will be the right 1 for you. There are many here who have each 1 and can answer your questions Keep us posted..Sending positive thoughts your way.

By way of background, my lesion was about 1.5cm and also on the right kidney.  It was discovered in December, 2013 and, like you, I was told active surveillance was the way to go, which I did.  Two and a half years later and a few ultransound and CT scans later, an ultrasound found it had grown to 1.8, so the urologic oncologist said let's get it out.  Like you, I was offered cryo and a robotic partial.  At the time (mid-2016), the success rate of the cryo was estimated to be in the low 90% range, while the surgery had a 99% success rate.  The uroogic oncologist I was seeing suggested the surgery was better, as not only did it have a higher success rate, it also had the benefit of getting the damn thing out and allowing it to be very thoroughly examined by a pathologist.  (Mine was a low grade chromophobe renal cell carcinoma, which, I was told, rarely recurs, rarely spreads and is very slow growing.)  The surgeon I got also verified the success rates and, when I got out of surgery and he saw me the next morning, he said the success rate for my type of cancer was virtually 100% (which doesn't mean I still don't get anxious when scan time comes up).

Some things to consider.  Given that yours grew at a faster rate than mine, you might want to consider the surgery just to get the thing analyzed, thereby having a better idea of how to monitor you in the future.  On the other hand, surgery is surgery and surgery is never really pleasant.

There's no right anwer for you.  It's pretty much a matter of personal comfort.

As Retcenturion ( who I would trust  with my life) says this is your second time round the merry go round 

Do not risk it

Cyro might work but it might not..

The great thing about the surgery it you know everything will be taken away and you will get a full report on the fecker

size

type

location 

 if you are reasonably fit and well do the surgery

its not easy...but doable. ( I am the worst patient in the World). it’s takes a while before you are back to your old self but  a cancer free old self

Good Luck

Annie

As Icemann says, back when he had his nephrectomy they only performed full nephrectomies.  Partials started coming around as technology advanced.  Now cyroblation is becoming more common.  I think it really comes down to what you're comfortable with.  Take it out or kill it where it is.

Good luck with your decision and with the procedure.

Stub

I had a tumor of 1.8 cm top of Left kidney removed July 5 laproscopically, Da Vinci robotic assisted. I am 67 years old. I was discharged within 24 hours and so far my pain has been controlled by Tylenol although I did take a Victorian at bedtime to help me sleep. My surgeon said they only had to remove 1% of the kidney and cure rate with surgery alone was in the 90+% range. Mine was clear cell renal cell carcinoma. He'll discuss scan frequency, follow ups etc at post op  visit. I took into consideration the advice of all the veterans here along with my doctor's recommendations and am happy with my well informed decision. You have come to the right place!

Chipmaker said:

Good afternoon all, I met

Good afternoon all, I met with the Interventional Radiologest today and have decided on CRYO. All of the studies that I have found and the info from today make me believe that with my circumstances this is as good as but will be less invasive than surgery. He typically sends patients home the same day but since I will have about a 2 hr drive and we wouldn't get out of Birmingham until around 4-5 in the afternoon we decided to stay one night at the hospital. Not sure of the date yet but I am ready to  "Geter Done".  Thanks to all for the input and I will keep in touch.

Perry

My biggest concern with cryo would be the lack of a full pathology on the tumor. This is how we find out what we really had. It tells us if it was RCC or not, what type of RCC, the staging, and margins (whether they got it all). This information is helpful (I think) in the future should you have a recurrence somewhere else.

The doc that's recommending cryo, do they not find a fully pathology report on the tumor to be that important? I've never seen this fully explained. Without this, will you even know if you had cancer or not? And how will they decide your followup care? The prognosis for someone with Stage 3 clear cell RCC Grade 3-4 is much different than someone with Stage 1 ccRCC Grade 1 (and there are several other types that are more aggressive and need to be treated differently if there is metastatis at a later date).

Best to you,

Todd

You don’t need it but another dissenting voice

prostate and renal cancer are two completely different cancers

the majority of prostate is a very slow growing noN aggressive cancer

as you know a number of men are found with prosate cancer after death and they were never aware of it and it wasn’t the cause of death

rcc is totally different.  ...it’s. A sneaky horrible disease

Your cyst has grown which means it has an 80 to 90% of being cancer

it is still very small so the Cyro might work

i have read of a number of people who were told all fine only for it to come back and more aggressive 

however this is  2018 so the technology might be vastly improved 

I hope it is

good luck