A 68-year-old female patient had an episode of hematuria in June 1999. She also complained of intermittent right-sided flank soreness. Computed tomography revealed a 3.7 x 4.8 cm.mass occupying the upper portion of the right kidney with inferior vena cava(IVC) thrombus.Under the suspicion of renal cell carcinoma(RCC), radical nephrectomy with IVC thrombectomy was carried out subsequently. Pathologic examination of the specimen confirmed transitional cell carcinoma(TCC) without regional lymph node metastasis. There was no evidence of recurrence postoperatively during a 11-month period of follow-up. Invasion of the inferior vena cava by RCC is rare, but there are a few reports of such local extension of TCC. Because most patients have advanced disease at the time of diagnosis, the prognosis is grim. Herein we report the
case and literature review.