Renal pelvic transitional cell carcinoma constitutes about 7 percent of all kidney cancer. This report is a summary of 611 Illinois patients with this tumor treated between 1975 and 1985. Overall, the five-year relative survival rate was 62 percent and the observed five-year rate was 48 percent. Stage was a major determinant of survival, as expected, in these cancer patients. The Illinois experience is reviewed and compared with the accumulated literature experience with renal pelvic cancers since 1944.