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.