What Are The Early Signs Of Kidney Cancer

What Are The Symptoms Of Kidney Cancer

Most people with this disease wont have any obvious indicators of kidney cancer when they are diagnosed. Still, around a third of people do receive a diagnosis because of their symptoms, which often appear in more advanced stages, though not always. If you have symptoms from kidney cancer, heres what can show up:

Hidden Sign: Blood In Your Urine

OK, its not exactly one of the subtle signs of kidney cancerseeing blood in your urine is alarming. But you may not realize how serious it is or chalk it up to other, more common problems, like a urinary tract infection. However, if the blood in your urine is from kidney cancer, the cancer is most likely more advanced, according to the Mayo Clinic. Either way, get checked out by your doctor.

You should also learn to recognize the silent signs you have a kidney infection.

Dont Ignore These Symptoms Of Kidney Cancer

Kidney cancer is one of the 10 most common cancers for men and women more than 75,000 people are diagnosed each year. Most kidney cancer is detected at an early stage before symptoms start. But 20% to 30% of the time, it presents with symptoms and is diagnosed at a more advanced stage.

The majority of kidney tumors are discovered accidentally, according to Brian Shuch, MD, director of the Kidney Cancer Program at UCLA Health. People go for imaging for some other cause and are found to have a kidney tumor, he says. But we also see later-stage diagnoses that present symptomatically.

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What Is The Outlook For People With Kidney Cancer

The chance of recovery depends on the type and stage of cancer . The chance of recovery also depends on the patient’s general state of health.

Like most cancers, kidney cancer is most able to be treated if it is found in its early stages. In general, if the cancer is detected early, before it breaks through the outer covering of the kidney, kidney cancer is often curable.

Treating Kidney Cancer With Urology Specialist

It is crucial to act swiftly if you notice any symptoms. While many of the above may the related to another less serious issue, it is always smart to see your doctor and have yourself assessed as early as possible.

Dr Arianayagam is an expert in the field of urological cancer. If you have any further questions about kidney cancer and would like to book an appointment, please feel free to call. We will always provide our patients with compassionate care and advice.

While youre here, learn some more about how we can help you:

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Other More Vague Symptoms

• loss of appetite
• a general feeling of poor health

A high temperature and sweats can be caused by an infection. Your doctor may want to rule this out first.

High blood pressure and having fewer red blood cells than normal can also be symptoms of kidney cancer. These symptoms are related to the hormones that the kidneys produce.

These symptoms can be caused by many other conditions. Most people who have them will not have cancer. But if you have any of these symptoms, go to your doctor for a check up. If it is cancer, it will be easier to treat if its diagnosed early.

You should see your doctor if you have:

• blood in your urine

What Will Your Doctor Find

During the diagnosis, the doctor will determine other symptoms of kidney cancer that you couldnt find on your own. They might press on your abdomen to check for a lump. The other tests are:

Urine tests can find traces of blood in the urine.

Blood tests can detect chemicals that the kidneys are supposed to remove from the body.

CT, MRI, and ultrasonography create pictures of the kidneys and allow doctors to look for growths that may be cancerous.

A biopsy involves removing a piece of tissue from the kidneys to be examined under a microscope for cancer.

If you have early signs of kidney cancer and looking for a diagnosis of kidney cancer, consult Dr. Tara Chand Gupta, the best oncologist in India, Jaipur. Dr. Tara is a Specialist in Chemotherapy, Targeted Therapy, and Immunotherapy.

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Early Signs Of Kidney Cancer

There are no visible symptoms of kidney cancer until the tumor has already grown. The primary and most common symptom of kidney cancer is blood in the urine. If the amount of blood is too small, and you are not able to detect you must consult a doctor.

However, the converse is not true i.e. noticing blood in the urine doesnt make it necessary that it is kidney cancer. Other infections or respiratory stones can also cause this symptom.

The other symptoms of kidney cancer are

• Pain in the side or lower back
• Feeling a mass on your abdomen, side, or lower back
• A fever
• Swelling of the ankles

Advanced Or Recurrent Kidney Cancer Treatment

For people with advanced kidney cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, treatment with a drug may be recommended along with surgery, or instead of surgery. Some of these drugs are given to you as a pill that you take by mouth others are given as an injection. Much progress has been made in recent years, and people with advanced kidney cancer are living much longer than ten years ago.

• Medicine is often used for advanced kidney cancer that has spread to other parts of the body or where surgery cannot be done.
• Immunotherapy uses the bodys defense system to stop or slow the growth of cancer cells
• Monoclonal antibodies attack a specific part of cancer cells
• Checkpoint inhibitors help the immune system recognize and attack cancer cells
• Vaccines give an overall boost to the immune system

Anti-angiogenic therapies reduce the blood supply to a tumor to slow or stop its growth

Targeted therapies directly inhibit the growth of the cancer

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The Kidneys And Cancer

The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs located on either side of the body, just underneath the ribcage.

Their main role is to filter out waste products from the blood, in addition to producing urine. Only one of the kidneys is usually affected by cancer.

The human body is made up of billions of cells, which normally grow and multiply in an orderly way, with new cells being created only when and where they’re needed. In cancer, this orderly process goes wrong and cells begin to grow and multiply uncontrollably.

Exactly what triggers this growth is unknown however, there are certain risk factors that can increase the chances of the condition developing, such as smoking and obesity.

Kidney cancer most frequently affects people over 50 years of age and is more common among men.

Read more about the causes of kidney cancer.

Signs Of Kidney Disease

You’re more tired, have less energy or are having trouble concentrating. A severe decrease in kidney function can lead to a buildup of toxins and impurities in the blood. This can cause people to feel tired, weak and can make it hard to concentrate. Another complication of kidney disease is anemia, which can cause weakness and fatigue.

You’re having trouble sleeping. When the kidneys aren’t filtering properly, toxins stay in the blood rather than leaving the body through the urine. This can make it difficult to sleep. There is also a link between obesity and chronic kidney disease, and sleep apnea is more common in those with chronic kidney disease, compared with the general population.

You have dry and itchy skin. Healthy kidneys do many important jobs. They remove wastes and extra fluid from your body, help make red blood cells, help keep bones strong and work to maintain the right amount of minerals in your blood.Dry and itchy skin can be a sign of the mineral and bone disease that often accompanies advanced kidney disease, when the kidneys are no longer able to keep the right balance of minerals and nutrients in your blood.

You feel the need to urinate more often. If you feel the need to urinate more often, especially at night, this can be a sign of kidney disease. When the kidneys filters are damaged, it can cause an increase in the urge to urinate. Sometimes this can also be a sign of a urinary infection or enlarged prostate in men.

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How Is Kidney Cancer Diagnosed And Assessed

A doctor may suspect that you have kidney cancer from the symptoms and signs listed above and then arrange tests to confirm the diagnosis. However, in developed countries, about half of kidney cancers are diagnosed before any symptoms develop. They are usually seen by chance when a scan or other investigation is done for another reason.

Stages Of Kidney Cancer

• Stage I: The tumor is 7 cm across or smaller and is only in the kidney. It has not spread to lymph nodes or other tissue. .
• Stage II: The tumor is larger than 7 cm across but is still only in the kidney. It has not spread to lymph nodes or other tissue.
• Stage III: The tumor has spread to the major blood vessels the renal vein and inferior vena cava or into the tissue surrounding the kidney, or to nearby lymph nodes.
• Stage IV: The tumor has spread outside of the kidney to the adrenal gland , or to distant lymph nodes, or to other organs.

Tumors are also graded, which is a way of rating a tumor based on how abnormal its cells look. Tumor grading can also tell the doctor how fast the tumor is likely to grow. Tumors whose cells do not look like normal cells and divide rapidly are called high-grade tumors. High-grade tumors tend to grow and spread more quickly than low-grade tumors.

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How Is Kidney Cancer Treated

Treatment depends on the type of cancer, the stage, and grade of the tumor, and the patient’s age and overall health.

Surgery is the most common treatment for kidney cancer. Several surgical options may be considered, including:

• Partial nephrectomy: The surgeon removes just the part of the kidney that contains the tumor.
• Radical nephrectomy: The surgeon removes the whole kidney and some of the tissue around the kidney. Some lymph nodes in the area also may be removed.

When one kidney is removed, the remaining kidney usually is able to perform the work of both kidneys.

Surgery is the treatment of choice for most stages of kidney cancer. For chemotherapy for kidney cancer, there are many relatively new agents that block the blood flow to the tumor and put it into remission. These medications are typically taken by mouth and are generally well tolerated. The other approach is to use medication that activates the bodys own immune system to fight the tumor.

Some people with kidney cancer participate in clinical trials. Clinical trials are research programs conducted with patients to evaluate new medical treatments, drugs or devices. Clinical trials also are being conducted on new chemotherapy drugs and on new ways to use biological therapy for patients with kidney cancer.

What Is The Outlook

The outlook is best in those whose cancer is diagnosed when it is still confined within a kidney and has not spread, and who are otherwise in general good health. Surgical removal of an affected kidney in this situation gives a good chance of cure. However, many people with kidney cancer are diagnosed when the cancer has already spread. In this situation a cure is less likely. However, treatment can often slow down the progression of the cancer.

The response to treatment can also vary from case to case. This may be partly related to the exact subtype or grade of the cancer. Some kidney cancers, even some which are advanced and have spread, respond much better to immunotherapy than others.

The treatment of cancer is a developing area of medicine. New treatments continue to be developed and the information on outlook above is very general. The specialist who knows your case can give more accurate information about your particular outlook, and how well your type of cancer and stage of cancer are likely to respond to treatment.

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Family History And Genetics

If you have a close family member who’s been diagnosed with kidney cancer, you’re about twice as likely to develop kidney cancer yourself.

Examples of inherited genetic conditions and syndromes that increase your risk of developing kidney cancer include:

• tuberous sclerosis a rare genetic condition that causes multiple non-cancerous tumours to grow in the body its autosomal dominant, which means you only have to inherit the faulty gene from one parent to get it about one in every 100 people with tuberous sclerosis will develop kidney cancer
• hereditary papillary kidney cancer a rare form of cancer caused by faulty genes inherited from your parents its autosomal dominant and causes small, slow-growing, cancerous tumours to develop in the kidneys, which can sometimes spread
• hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell carcinoma a rare, autosomal dominant form of cancer, where cancerous tumours develop from smooth muscle tissue people with HLRCC have a 10-16% increased risk of developing kidney cancer
• Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome a rare genetic syndrome that causes small non-cancerous tumours to develop inside the nervous system VHL is also autosomal dominant and about 4 out of 10 people who have it develop kidney cancer
• Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome an inherited syndrome that causes non-cancerous tumours to develop in the hair follicles of the skin they usually occur on the face, neck and torso

Hidden Sign: For Men Swollen Veins Around The Right Testicle

While the problem can turn up in either testicle, a varicocelea cluster of swollen veinsmost often targets the right testicle and it can indicate that you have a large kidney tumour, according to cancer.net. While youll no doubt already be motivated, you should see your doctor immediately. While youre examining things down there, consider this invaluable advice from a urologist.

Learn to recognize the silent signs of testicular cancer.

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Difficulty In Diagnosing Kidney Cancer

The tricky thing about kidney cancer is that early on in this disease, you may have no symptoms at all. And unlike, say, a lump in the breast, kidney tumors are deep inside the body and just a few centimeters long in the early stages, meaning you probably wont physically feel it, either.

Also, there are no recommended screening tests for people at average risk of developing kidney cancer. Doctors dont suggest it simply because none of the tests have shown to lower your odds of dying from the disease.

Instead, doctors often find kidney tumors while doing imaging tests for an unrelated health problem. While many of the tumors found by chance are relatively small and slow-growing, some will have already spread to other parts of the body.

Keep in mind, growths in the kidney arent always cancerthey can be fluid-filled cysts or tumors that wont spread to other organsbut your doctor will want to investigate any suspicious-looking lumps anyway.

Expert Compassionate Kidney Care In The Greater Chicago Area

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Other Possible Risk Factors

There are also a number of other possible risk factors for developing kidney cancer, including:

• mild painkillers some mild painkillers have been linked to an increased risk of developing kidney cancer NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen, may slightly increase the risk, although occasional use or low doses are unlikely to be harmful
• kidney disease if you have kidney failure and need to have regular dialysis , your risk of developing kidney cysts and kidney cancer is increased
• high blood pressure high blood pressure is a known risk factor for kidney disease, and you’re up to twice as likely to develop kidney cancer if you have raised blood pressure

Signs Of Kidney Cancer You Should Know About

• 04 Jul 2019

Your kidneys are two bean-shaped, barely fist-sized objects that filter enough blood to fill a large bathtub, each day. They are so critical that our bodies have one extra, even though we can live normally with just one kidney.

Renal cell Adenocarcinoma is one of the top 10 cancers in the world. Early detection can have positive results for the treatment. If you or a family member notice any of the following symptoms, do not dismiss them as unimportant and visit the doctor immediately.

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Is Surgery An Option

Since the average age at diagnosis is 64, half of kidney cancer patients are over age 65, which can make surgery a riskier proposition. Those who may be good candidates to remove a tumour are those whose cancer was caught early, says Dr. Abel. On the other hand, if a patient has co-existing heart or lung disease , having surgery may be too dangerous. Your doctor will help weigh the risks versus benefits of surgery depending on the characteristics of the tumour and personal health history. A single kidney happens to be one of the nine organs you can live without.