Three patients with cavoatrial involvement of renal tumors had been operated during the last four years by the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and Urology Departments of Istanbul Medical Faculty. In one case, the dissection of the tumor was done without using cardiopulmonary bypass and the patient was lost because of the tumor emboli. In other cases radical surgical procedures were performed by using standby cardiopulmonary bypass. There was no peroperative or postoperative complications in these cases.
As the complete resection of renal tumors has a better prognosis than the incomplete resection and as it is possible to achieve this by using cardiopulmonary bypass, we belive that the combined surgical therapy of cardiovascular surgeons and urologist would be more succesful.