Treatment

When it comes to treatment options, the health care team at the John Stoddard Cancer Center will help you to make the right decision. Treatment for kidney cancer might involve surgery, radiation therapy and/or chemotherapy. It's important to talk with your doctor about the advantages and disadvantage of each. The best treatment choice will depend on the stage of the cancer as well as your general health.

Surgery is the most common treatment for renal cell cancer. The chances of surviving kidney cancer without having surgery are poor. Depending on the type and stage, you might have one of the following surgeries:

Radical nephrectomy: The whole kidney, the adrenal gland (the gland that "sits" on top of the kidney), and some nearby fatty tissue are removed. Nearby lymph nodes are sometimes removed as well.
Partial nephrectomy: The surgeon removes only the cancerous part of the kidney. This is an option if both kidneys have cancer, if you have only one kidney, or if there is a very small cancer in only one kidney.
Removal of metastases: Sometimes surgery is done to remove cancer that has spread. This can help relieve pain or other symptoms even though it does not usually help patients live longer.

Radiation Therapy

Some people cannot have surgery because of poor health. In those cases, radiation therapy may be the best treatment choice.

External radiation aims radiation at the cancer from outside the body. This treatment is sometimes used as the main treatment for patients who cannot have surgery. Kidney cancer, however, does not respond well to radiation. It is not often used routinely after surgery because studies show that is doesn't help people live longer.

Immunotherapy
Because chemotherapy for kidney cancer does not work well, doctors are investigating a newer approach called immunotherapy.

There are several different immunotherapies used to treat renal cell cancer. Cytokines are used for kidney cancer that has spread. For some patients, cytokines can shrink the cancer to less than half its original size.

Prognosis
In about half of the cases, the kidney cancer has not spread beyond the kidney when it is detected. The survival rate is higher for people with small tumors and lower for people who have large tumors that have grown outside the kidney.

Stage Five-Year Survival Rate