Renal tumours of childhood: an overview

The diagnosis, management and prognosis of paediatric renal tumours have significantly improved over the last 40 years. Pathologists have played a significant role in these developments through their work in multicentre national and international trials and studies, by recognizing new tumour entities, as well as favourable and unfavourable histological features of different tumours. Over the last few years, a number of new tumour entities have been recognized in the kidney due to the application of molecular techniques, but also on the basis of their characteristic clinicopathological features recognized by studying large series of tumours from national and international trials. In addition to histology and stage, in recent trials some molecular genetic abnormalities have been introduced for treatment stratification of patients with Wilms tumour.