ABSTRACT
The standard surgical treatment of upper tract urothelial carcinoma is radical nephroureterectomy with complete excision of the ipsilateral bladder cuff. This was proposed by Kimball and Ferris in 1933 (1), after the authors found a high incidence of tumor in the remaining ureter following a radical nephrectomy for upper tract urothelial carcinoma. Some 40 years later, Strong and Pearse in 1976 quantified an average of 30% recurrence rate of urothelial carcinoma in the ureteral stump when incomplete nephroureterectomy was performed (2). Thus, a radical nephroureterectomy with complete excision of the bladder cuff is the standard surgical treatment of upper tract urothelial carcinoma (3,4).
