Laparoscopic Retroperitoneal Renal Cystectomy

Laparoscopic manipulation of retroperitoneal organs is usually performed by the transperitoneal approach primarily because of the ease of access by way of the pneumoperitoneum. However, difficulty in adequately accessing structures that are surrounded by bowel, liver, spleen or postoperative adhesions makes this approach suboptimal in certain cases. We describe the use of the retroperitoneal laparoscopic approach to the upper pole of a kidney for marsupialization of a symptomatic, recurrent, complex renal cyst. An algorithm for current management of symptomatic renal cysts is discussed.