Treatment of mixed tumors of the kidney in childhood

Mixed tumors of the kidney in infancy and childhood can be easily recognized in most instances by simple procedures of physical examination and pyelography. In general, it is not difficult to differentiate them from other masses which can appear in the upper quadrants of the abdomen. Therapy in all instances should include transabdominal nephrectomy and postoperative roentgen irradiation to the area. Whether preoperation irradiation has any advantage other than reducing the size of the mass and facilitating its operative removal is still unproved in the authors' experience or in any literature which has appeared to date. By immediate nephrectomy, combined with routine postoperative irradiation to the operative site, survivals (from 1940 through 1947) have been 47% in children of all ages; in babies under 12 months of age the survivals have been 80%.