The following is a summary of “Success rate of small renal mass core needle biopsy and its impact on lowering benign resection rate,” published in the November 2023 issue of Urology by Gao, et al.

Due to shame, the small renal mass (SRM) biopsy is still not used very often. Also, the shockingly high number of benign findings in kidney masses that were surgically removed showed that they need better evaluation and patient selection before surgery. For a study, researchers sought to look at how often SRM biopsy works and how it changes how patients are cared for. From 2015 to 2019, 168 image-guided core needle biopsies (CNBs) of SRMs were taken at a major research center in five years. 

Later treatment options, side effects, and results were looked at in the past. A diagnosis of CNB was made 86.9% of the time. A big part (14.3%) of SRM comprised benign neoplasms. RCCs, or renal cell carcinomas, were the most common diagnosis (69.6%), which was unsurprising. CNB had a 100% positive prediction value in the association between tissue and removal. 

CNB was very good at typing and subtyping tumors; it got 100% and 98.3% of the time. In 83.8% of cases, the nuclear grade for clear cell RCC was right. The results of the CNB had a big effect on treatment. Most people with RCCs had either removal (54.1%) or ablation (33.9%). It differed from people with benign neoplasms (90.5%), who were just watched. The rate of benign removal in this series was 3.2%, much lower than the national norm. Most of the SRMs were correctly diagnosed with CNB, and some clinically suspicious tumors were harmless. Using CNB in SRM that looks dangerous might help keep people from getting too much treatment for benign tumors.

Source: bmcurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12894-023-01363-x