RESUMO
INTRODUCTION: Kidney cancer (mostly renal cell carcinoma) is one of the ten most commonly diagnosed malignant tumors among men and women. Due to the widespread use of computer tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, the proportion of early-stage kidney cancers has increased. Currently, treatment options for stage 1 kidney cancer are radical nephrectomy, partial nephrectomy, and active surveillance. Among organ-preserving intervention, three main techniques can be distinguished: open surgery, minimally invasive surgery and ablation methods. To date, robotic-assisted procedures have occupied their place among minimally invasive interventions. AIM: To carry out a comparative analysis of two methods of organ-preserving treatment of kidney tumors, namely robot-assisted and laparoscopic partial nephrectomy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective comparative analysis of two groups of patients with kidney tumors who underwent robotic-assisted or laparoscopic partial nephrectomy during the period from 2012 to 2019 was performed. RESULTS: There were no differences between two groups in age, mean score on the RENAL nephrometry scale, preoperative creatinine levels, tumor size, and duration of warm ischemia. However, duration of surgery, the volume of blood loss, serum creatinine after surgery, the length of stay, the use of the technique of early unclamping of the renal artery, the use of technique "off-clamp" and the proportion of exophytic tumors with growth were significantly different between patients of two groups. CONCLUSION: We believe that the robotic system is intuitively convenient for performing partial nephrectomy, allowing the treatment of potentially more complex cases and expanding the indications for organ-preserving procedures.