The evolving role of renal mass biopsy

Renal mass biopsy (RMB) is becoming a common method to evaluate patients with incidental renal masses (1). Richard et al. recently reported their experience with RMB at a single academic medical center over 13 years (2). This large series adds to the growing body of literature that provides evidence for increasing utilization of RMB. The authors report that RMB is safe, with only one major complication in 492 patients for whom data was available and no needle tract seeding was reported. These findings are consistent with a recent meta-analysis of over 5,000 patients treated with RMB, suggesting that contemporary RMB is rarely associated with serious adverse events (3).