Laparoscopic Partial Nephrectomy: A Narrative Review and Comparison with Open and Robotic Partial Nephrectomy

Introduction: Kidney cancer ranks among the top 10 most prevalent cancers in Western society, ∼90% of which are renal cell carcinomas. There has been a paradigm shift in the management of small renal masses with strong emphasis now placed on nephron-sparing surgery and increased utilization of laparoscopic approaches to partial nephrectomy. In this review, the current state of laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (LPN) is discussed.

Evidence Acquisition: The PubMed database was queried using the MeSH terms “laparoscopy” and “nephrectomy,” as well as the search term “partial.” A search was performed filtering for “clinical trial,” “review,” “humans”, and “English.”

Evidence Synthesis: Articles that discussed intraoperative techniques, functional and oncologic outcomes, and a comparison between robot-assisted partial nephrectomy and LPN were synthesized.

Conclusion: LPN reduces ischemia time, affords equivalent functional outcomes, oncologic outcomes, and equivalent complication rates compared with open partial nephrectomy. Future advances in laparoscopic technique and advancements in robotic technology offer potential to improve surgical and patient outcomes.