Kidney Cancer: Know symptoms, causes and treatment

What is Renal Cancer or Kidney cancer?

Cancer, caused by the uncontrolled proliferation of aberrant cells creates a mass known as a tumour, which when developed in the kidney, is referred to as kidney cancer. Non-cancerous cells can form in the kidney on occasion, making it difficult to distinguish between the two in laboratory or radiographic studies. However, unlike in the past, when treatment options were limited, with advances in medicine and surgery, a large proportion of cancers can be cured if diagnosed early. Though people above 60 years old are more at risk of kidney cancer, with men are the most prevalent.

Causes:
There are a few hereditary abnormalities that can predispose a person to kidney cancer, but no risk factors have been demonstrated to have a direct causal influence on renal malignancies. Smoking, obesity, and high blood pressure have all been linked to kidney cancer.

Symptoms & Diagnosis:
Renal cancer symptoms include blood in the urine, flank discomfort, swelling in the kidney region, loss of weight or appetite, and so on.

Treatment options:
Treatment is primarily surgical, and if detected early, an advanced yet common surgical procedure called Partial Nephrectomy (Nephron Sparing Surgery) is performed, in which only the tumour with a thin rim of normal kidney tissue is removed, curing the patient of cancer while sparing the rest of the kidney.
This can be accomplished by open surgery, laparoscopy, or the cutting-edge technology of robotic surgery, which allows a patient to be treated and back on his feet quickly and painlessly.
Though therapy depends on the size and location of the tumour, its grade, and if it has spread to other organs, sophisticated robotic surgery has proven a blessing in most cases.
In certain situations, newer therapeutic methods like cryoablation and radiofrequency ablation have shown to be beneficial.