What is kidney cancer and what are its symptoms?
It is a common cancer in both men and women, about the tenth – twelfth most common solid tumor in order of frequency. It usually occurs in the functioning tissue of the kidney and in its expansive growth it destroys the function of the kidney when it reaches a significant volume it can spread giving metastasis. The symptoms of this type of cancer are related to the presence of blood in the urine and, if the tumor reaches a significant volume, the presence of a palpable nodule in the abdomen. However, most of these tumors are detected incidentally, that is to say, the patient does not suffer any symptoms related to the tumor and they are discovered in the ultrasound or scan analysis, known as abdominal CAT scan. In those cases in which, when performing an examination for another symptom such as any digestive problem or any problem of loss of appetite or any other sign, we incidentally detect the presence of this tumor on the kidney.
What does the treatment consist of, is removal always necessary?
The treatment of these lesions of kidney cancer is a surgical treatment. It is always necessary to remove the entire lesion and sometimes if the volume is important, greater than seven centimeters, complete removal of the kidney is necessary, but on many occasions, when the tumors are smaller than four centimeters, we perform conservative surgery of the kidney, that is to say, we remove only the external part. There are some alternative treatments by cryosurgery and high-intensity ultrasound that are only applied in very elderly patients, since they do not reach the same levels of effectiveness as surgical treatment.
What is the evolution of the patients after excision?
After surgical removal of these lesions, most patients have a good evolution since they do not need any medical or dietary treatment and only in those patients in whom distant metastasis has occurred will it be necessary to treat the metastasis. Or, nowadays, we have anti-angiogenic drugs with the capacity to have a good response after taking them in tablet form. This means that even if metastases are present, there is the possibility of effective treatment for this type of process.