Kidney cancer

[Cami]

Kidney cancer may cause blood in the urine, pain in the side, or fever.
Cancer is most often detected by accident when an imaging test is done for another reason.
Diagnosis is by computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging.
Removing the kidney prolongs survival and may be curative if cancer has not spread.

Kidney cancer accounts for about 2 to 3% of cancers in adults, affecting about 50% more men than women. About 73,820 people develop kidney cancer each year and about 14,770 die of it (2019 estimates). Smokers are about twice as likely to develop kidney cancer as nonsmokers. Other risk factors include exposure to toxic chemicals (for example, asbestos, cadmium, leather tanning, and petroleum products) and obesity. People who are undergoing dialysis and develop cystic kidney disease and people with certain inherited disorders are also at higher risk of kidney cancer. People affected are usually between 50 and 70 years of age.
Most solid kidney tumors are cancerous, but purely fluid-filled tumors (cysts) generally are not. Almost all kidney cancer is renal cell carcinoma. Another kind of kidney cancer, Wilms tumor, occurs more often in children.