What is the surgical removal of the kidney called?

A nephrectomy is the surgical removal of a kidney, performed to treat a number of kidney diseases including kidney cancer. It is also done to remove a normal healthy kidney from a living or deceased donor, which is part of a kidney transplant procedure.

The first recorded nephrectomy was performed in 1861 by Erastus B. Wolcott in Wisconsin. The patient had had a large tumor and the operation was initially successful, but the patient died fifteen days later. The first planned nephrectomy was performed by the German surgeon Gustav Simon on August 2, 1869, in Heidelberg. Simon practiced the operation beforehand in animal experiments. He proved that one healthy kidney can be sufficient for urine excretion in humans.