Risk Factors To Kidney Cancer

Early detection of kidney cancer is difficult. This is not unlike most cancers. The overall survival rate of kidney cancer is around 40 percent, with surgery being the primary treatment. Treatment is most successful if the cancer cells are localised. To prevent, it is important to understand what risk factors contribute to increased risks.

Although kidneys are fairly small, they can do much for your body. Kidneys look like beans and come in a pair. Each kidney is just a little bigger than your computer mouse and weigh just about a quarter of a pound at 4 maybe 5 ounces. Your kidneys can be found in the upper abdominal cavity and is anchored to its back wall, one on each side of your spinal column. The lower ribcage provides some protection to your kidneys, just like your liver.

You can get by with one kidney, if the other one fails. However, if both fails, then you may need a procedure known as kidney dialysis.

Your kidney is a housekeeper for your body. It helps to remove all waste products, excess salt, and water by filtering these from your blood and disposing of them via your urine. If your kidneys fail to function, your blood can become toxic and this can result in harmful consequences. Urine from the kidneys travels through ureters to your bladder where they collect until expelled by urination. Your kidneys also produce substances that contribute to controlling blood pressure and red blood cell production.

What happens when you have kidney cancer? Symptoms include blood in the urine, lingering pain on the side, abdomen, or back and sudden weight loss. You also experience an overall sense of weakness.

The most common form of this disease is renal cell carcinoma (RCC). This easily makes up more than 90 percent of all cancerous tumours. There are five main types of RCC: clear cell RCC, papillary RCC, and three minor ones. Clear cell RCC comprises 80 percent of all renal cell carcinomas, which suggests 72 percent of all kidney cancers. Papillary RCC occurs in 10 to 15 percent of all RCCs.

Other types of cancers affecting the kidneys are transitional cell carcinoma, renal sarcoma, and Wilms tumour. Transitional cell carcinomas occur in the renal pelvis, the connection between the kidney and ureter, and make up at most one-tenth of all kidney cancers. Wilms tumour happens almost exclusively in children; it can comprise 5 to 6 percent of kidney tumours. Renal sarcoma is quite rare.

Risks to kidney cancer increases with the following factors:

1. Kidney cancer, like bladder cancer, happens more among men who are twice as likely as
women to get it.

2. Genetic factors may play a part. If you have a parent or a relative who has had kidney cancer, then your chances to developing one increases.

3. Smoking causes kidney cancer, and men who smoke more than 2 packs a day have double the risk compared with non-smokers. Unfortunately, cutting the habit does not help too much. Studies show that after 15 years of cessation, the risk of cancer in former smokers is only 15 to 25 percent lower than among current smokers.

4. Obesity is a risk factor, especially among women. High blood pressure also increases risk.

5. Some occupations expose workers to cancer-causing chemicals. Steel workers assigned to coke ovens are at risk, as are workers in asbestos and cadmium.

If you suspect that you have increased risks, then it is best to see your doctor regularly for a physical check-up. You need to keep healthy in order to prevent diseases. You may also wish to do regular kidney cleansing to reduce your risks to developing cancer.

What Are The Stages Of Kidney Cancer?

Kidney cancer stage designations give your physician a way of describing how far the disease has progressed. By knowing the stage, the doctor can begin to formulate a treatment plan.

The greatest value of assigning a stage is that it lets the doctor - and the patient - know how serious the disease has become and how far cancer cells have spread. The doctor needs to know whether cancer cells are confined to the kidneys, or have they spread to the adjacent adrenal glands, lymph nodes, or even to distant organs and tissues in the body. With this in mind, you can understand why knowing the stage is necessary for making a prognosis and designing a treatment regimen.

Doctors consider a range of factors in determining what stage renal ("renal" is a medical term for kidney) cancer has reached. After all tests and diagnostic tools have been examined, a stage will be assigned. Typically the numbers range from 1 to 4. Some medical professionals prefer to use Roman numbers (I through IV).

Knowing the stage can also give patients a reasonably reliable way to guess survival rates (which are usually based on 5-year intervals). There's no guarantee, of course, that someone whose cancer has been caught early will survive longer than someone diagnosed at a later stage. But obviously, someone with early stage kidney cancer has a better chance at longevity than someone who is diagnosed with a later stage.

The following offers basic descriptions of each stage.

Stage 1 - All cancer cells appear to be concentrated within a kidney and have not spread to adjacent glands, tissues or organs. The cancerous area is no bigger than 2.8 inches across (about 7 centimeters).

Stage 2 - At this stage, the cancer is still located only in the kidney, but it has grown larger than 2.8 inches.

Stage 3 - Kidney cancer is more complicated to treat at Stage 3 because it has spread to the adjacent adrenal gland or a major vein near the kidney. It may also be found in no more than one lymph node.

Stage 4 - At Stage 4, kidney cancer has reached a very dangerous point. The cancer has metastacized, meaning it has spread to other parts of the body and is affecting other tissues or possibly a distant organ. It can now also be found in more than one lymph node.

In addition to assigning a stage to kidney cancer, doctors may also designate a "grade." This is a further tool in defining the potential danger. The grade describes how cancer cells look when examined under a microscope.

If there's not much difference in appearance between the cancer cells and normal cells, a low grade will be designated. However, when there's a big difference in appearance between normal cells and abnormal cells, a higher grade will be designated. Grade determinations are an indicator of how aggressive the cancer is and how fast it is probably going to spread. Cancers that receive a higher grade typically spread more quickly, and are therefore more dangerous.

Summarizing, they greatest value in knowing the stage kidney cancer has reached is in giving the patient a prognosis and evaluating treatment options.

Kidney cancer occurs most often in adults who have reached 50 years of age, and it occurs twice as often to men as it does to women. Kidney cancer accounts for approximately 12,000 deaths every year in the United States, according to statistics released by the American Cancer Society. 30,000 new cases are diagnosed annually.

Hopefully, as research toward finding a cure goes forward, these numbers will come down. In the meantime, knowing the stage kidney cancer has reached in individual cases will be a valuable diagnostic tool in helping doctors save as many lives as possible.

Kidney Cancer - Causes, Symptoms, Risks Factors and More

Kidney cancer or renal carcinoma usually occurs in older people and accounts for about 2 to 3% of cancers in adults, affecting about twice as many men as women. In adults, the most common type of kidney tumor is renal cell carcinoma, which begins in the cells that line the small tubes within your kidneys. Kidney cancer rarely strikes children and young adults; the exceptions are a pediatric kidney cancer called Wilms tumor and some forms of hereditary kidney cancer syndromes, such as von Hippel-Lindau disease.

Causes of Kidney Cancer

The causes are not known, however external factors, such as smoking and obesity, have been related to a higher incidence of kidney cancer and changing environmental factors as well as population aging has seen an increase in the presentation of this form of cancer.

Signs and Symptoms

Kidney cancer symptoms are often overlooked because tumours are usually slow growing and not suspected until the patient begins to experience symptoms such as blood in the urine, pain, tiredness and a palpable mass. Since back pain is common among people over 40 years of age, such pain is often ignored and the presence of kidney cancer can go undetected. Kidney cancer may also cause high blood pressure.

Risk Factors

The risk of developing kidney cancer is four times higher if a close relative has had kidney cancer. Being on dialysis for many years is a risk factor for kidney cancer.

People who have had bladder cancer are more likely to develop kidney cancer, and vice versa. About three per cent of kidney cancer patients have inherited a damaged gene that will make it likely the cancer will also be found in their second kidney.

Prevention

Not smoking is the most effective way to prevent kidney cancer and it is estimated that the elimination of smoking would reduce the rate of renal pelvis cancer by one-half and the rate of renal cell carcinoma by one-third.

Other factors that may decrease the risk of developing kidney cancer include: maintaining a normal body weight, a diet that is high in fruits and vegetables, especially in bananas and root vegetables such as carrots, maintaining normal blood pressure and limited exposure to environmental toxins.

Diagnosing Kidney Cancer

Cancer of the kidney is most commonly detected with either computed tomography (CT) scan, ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Cystoscopy can rule out associated bladder cancer. Kidney cancer cells may also break away from the original tumor and spread (or metastasize) to other parts of the body such as the lymph nodes, bones or lungs, with about one third of cases showing metastasis at the time of diagnosis.

Types of Kidney Cancer

Almost 85% of this tumor are renal cell carcinomas. A less common type of kidney is Papillary carcinoma. Other rare kidney cancers include: Renal sarcoma, Collecting Duct carcinoma, Medullary and Chromophobe carcinomas.

Treatment

Radical nephrectomy with or without the removal of lymph nodes offers the only cure but treatment of kidney cancer may include: surgery, arterial embolization, radiation therapy, biological therapy or chemotherapy depends upon the stage of the disease and the patient's overall health.

Nephrectomy or removal of the entire organ including the adrenal gland, adjacent lymph nodes and surrounding normal tissue has been the norm, but recent research shows that removal of just the tumor, produces similar survival rates and offers less chance of subsequent renal failure in selected cases.

Scientists have also isolated the gene responsible for VHL disease, and this discovery offers exciting future possibilities for improved diagnosis and treatment of some kidney cancers. Various combinations of interleukin-2, interferon, and other biologic agents and even vaccines developed from cells removed from the kidney cancer are also being investigated.

Survival Rates

With prompt and appropriate treatment, the kidney cancer mortality rate is fairly low, unfortunately kidney cancer has a tendency to spread early, especially to the lungs, sometimes before symptoms develop. The five year survival rate is around 90-95% for tumors less than 4 cm. For larger tumors confined to the kidney without venous invasion, survival is still relatively good at 80-85%. If it has metastasized to the lymph nodes, the 5-year survival is around 5 % to 15 %. If it has spread metastatically to other organs, the 5-year survival rate is less than 5 %.

An important factor for those with this form of cancer and for that matter with all cancers is that assertive patients who actively work to overcome cancer often increase the odds of survival, live longer, and enjoy life more.

Top 4 Most Asked Question About Kidney Cancer

Here is the first part of the top 4 questions people frequently ask about kidney cancer. I collected these questions from the Internet, such as Ask.com, Yahoo answers and other professional cancer websites and forums, then chose the top 4 from them by asking frequency and gave these questions the best answers.

Q1. How long does an advanced kidney cancer patient have? Or How long does someone with stage 4 Renal cell carcinoma have?

This is the most frequently asked question about kidney cancer, people always need to know how long they can stay with their family, their loved ones. However, there is not a simple answer for this question, because the situations vary from patient to patient.

First of all, let's take a look at the official 5-years survival rate. Generally, if the cancer is diagnosed at stage 1, the prognosis is good because a complete surgical resection of the cancerous growth is possible, the 5-years survival rate is 90%. The 5-years survival rate for stage 2 is 65 - 75%. At stage 3 the kidney cancer 5-years survival rate drops to 40 - 70% because the cancer would have spread to the nearby lymph nodes. At stage 4, the overall 5 year survival rate is barely 10%. If you still want to ask exactly how long does a particular kidney cancer patient have, please also consider the following factors, such as the general health state of the patient, patient's emotional and spiritual strength, how fast does the cancer grow and patient's treatment (see treatment options). All of these factors make the survival rate vary from patient to patient.

There are 4 most important factors in extending life for advanced kidney cancer patients you may want to see, see the link at the bottom.

Q2. How to relieve pain for an advanced kidney cancer patient?

The pain of advanced kidney cancer is hard to tolerate. Cancer pain is caused by the tumour pressing on bones, nerves or other organs in your body in most cases. To relieve symptom, the ideal way is to remove the source of the pain, for example, through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation (3D Conformal Radiotherapy (3D-CRT). Research shows that combination of radiotherapy and other therapies (such as targeted therapy) can do a better job.). If that cannot be done, pain medications can usually control the pain. Strong opioid medications for advanced renal cell carcinoma includes: morphine, oxycodone, hydromorphone, fentanyl or methadone, but these pain medications have many risks. As I said in another SUTENT side effects post (you can find it on my site), read the instruction books or official websites first before whatever you are going to take.

Specialized treatment, such as nerve blocks, also may be applicable. Nerve blocks are a local anesthetic that is injected around or into a nerve, which prevents pain messages traveling along that nerve pathway from reaching the brain. Other therapies, such as acupuncture, acupressure, massage, physical therapy, relaxation, meditation and humor, may help as well.

Q3. What is the best treatment option for late stage kidney cancer?

As we mentioned in question 1, no two people are exactly alike, treatment and responses to treatment vary greatly.

After the cancer is found and staged, your doctor will discuss your treatment options with you. It is important to take time and think about your possible choices. The factors need to be considered such as the type of kidney cancer (mostly clear cell RCC), stage (stage4, metastasis in more than 1 regional lymph node or distant metastasis) and tumor size and location, age and general health state.

Your treatment options may include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, targeted cancer therapy, biologic therapy, hormone therapy or some combinations of these.

A surgery should be considered first, it is the initial treatment commonly used in with renal cell carcinoma patients. The surgery that either removes parts of the kidney, or the entire kidney is called nephrectomy. However, numbers of patients with advanced kidney cancer cannot have surgery, if you cannot have surgery, you may benefit from other local treatments such as cryoablation, radiofrequency ablation, or arterial embolization. Otherwise, treatment with one of the targeted therapies would probably be the first option. Sunitinib (Sutent), sorafenib (Nexavar), everolimus (Affinitor), temsirolimus (Torisel), and bevacizumab (Avastin) are some of the latest targeted cancer drugs, and they are FDA approved.

Chemotherapy is not a standard treatment for the commonest type of kidney cancer - renal cell carcinoma. It is not as good at treating kidney cancer as some other treatments such as biological treatments. As well as radiation therapy, but radiation can be a neoadjuvant treatment to shrink tumour before surgery.

In considering your treatment options it is often a good idea to seek a second opinion, if possible.

Q4. What should I know about diet and nutrition if I have kidney cancer?

People who were diagnosed kidney cancer should receive specialized nutritional advice from doctor or a trained professional.

There are a few principles you need to follow:

If you smoke, you really should try to stop. Smoking has been linked to many cancers, including kidney cancer. As well as alcoholic drink, heavy drinking will cause kidney damage eventually.

A high protein diet has been linked to kidney disease, including cancer, most protein-rich foods are also rich in animal fats, eating a diet lower in protein may help you to maintain a healthy weight too. To eat more healthily, try to increase your intake of fresh fruit and vegetables and not eat so much protein. Avoid any foods with high purine, high fat, such as pork liver. Avoid Processed Meats.

Try to cut down on the amount of salt you add to your food. A high salt intake puts a strain on the kidneys (it is not good for your heart either).

Do not eat only one or few kinds of food you particularly like. Eat various foods every meal.

Do not take supplements unless your doctor asks you to. In fact, with kidney cancer, high-dose supplements could do more harm than good.

The recommendations in this publication can also reduce the risk of other chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.

Kidney Cancer Survival Rates

The kidney cancer survival rate is calculated from a number of factors that relate to both the characteristics of the disease itself, and also to the patient who has the disease.

In gathering their survival rate statistics, researchers take the type of cancer, stage, grade and location into consideration. There are also influential variables that are specific to each patient, including age, general health, and individual response to treatment.

By crunching numbers from such data in recent years, researchers have come up with some generally reliable statistics. Just one type of kidney cancer is shown below, but it is far more common than any other variety. It is known as renal cell carcinoma.

Kidney cancer survival rates are generally shown as the percentage of patients with the same kind of cancer at the same stage who are still alive after a certain period of time.

Naturally, the kidney cancer survival rate is a broad-based generalization calculated from a huge number of cases. No one can accurately predict how long a patient will live after being diagnosed, regardless of what stage the cancer has reached.

In the case of cancer of the kidney and most other diseases, the survival rate is measured in intervals of 5 years. In other words, a certain percentage of patients found to have renal cell carcinoma will survive for a minimum of five years after their diagnosis.

There are a variety of categories that can be listed for kidney cancer survival rates. The statistics below measure the survival rate of individuals who have been diagnosed with cancer of the kidneys versus the general population. Data was taken from a research study done in 1995-2001.

During this interval, the overall survival rate for renal cancer patients was 64.6 percent.

By gender and race, the study also found the following.

* 64.7 percent of Caucasian males survived for at least 5 years
* Almost exactly the same percentage of Caucasian women survived five years or more - 64.5
* The percentage for African-American men was somewhat lower at 61.8 percent
* African-American women had the best percentage of all at 65.9 percent

Knowing the stage of the disease is also important. The stage is the measure of how far the cancer has progressed and whether or not it has spread to other tissues or organs in the body.

Approximately 53 percent of cases are found before cancer cells have spread beyond the kidneys.

20 percent of cases are diagnosed during the stage in which cancer cells have reached nearby lymph nodes or tissues close to the kidneys.

22 percent of diagnoses are made when cancer has reached other tissues and organs beyond the kidneys.

Stages were unclear in the rest of the kidney cancer cases that were included in the study.

Naturally, data showed that cases diagnosed in the early stages resulted in the highest survival rates.

* 90 percent of patients who were diagnosed when the cancer was restricted to the kidneys reached the five year mark.
* The survival rate dropped to 60 percent for those whose cancer had spread to regions near the kidneys.
* The survival rate was just under 10 percent for those patients whose cancer had already spread to distant organs or parts of the body.
* Information on stages was unclear, unknown or undiagnosed for the rest of the patients in the study.

The National Cancer Institute reports that kidney cancer occurs in Northern Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States most often. Kidney cancer occurs least often in China, Thailand and the Philippines. It accounts for approximately three percent of all cancers diagnosed in the U.S.

Smokers have a higher risk of getting cancer of the kidney by approximately double. The risk is even greater for smokers with renal pelvis cancer, with four times as many getting the disease as non-smokers.