The kidneys are responsible for filtering toxic substances from the blood so that they can be eliminated through the urine. In this area of ??the body, malignant or benign tumors can form that appear in the tissue itself or in the urinary tract. These tumors originate in the cells that line the renal tubules, small tubes in the renal cortex.
Since 2017 and at the initiative of the International Kidney Cancer Coalition, World Kidney Cancer Day is celebrated every third Thursday of June, in order to raise awareness among the general population. and health professionals about this disease that affects millions of people in the world. In 2020, more than 430,000 people were diagnosed with this pathology worldwide. It is key to detect the tumor when it is in an initial stage, since this guarantees a very high survival rate.
Kidney cancer is categorized into different types, according to the characteristics of the tumor cells. The most frequent type of renal cancer is ‘clear cell’, which affects 75% of cases. The second most frequent is the papillary type (15%) and the third, the chromophobe (5%). There are other cell subtypes, but in unrepresentative percentages. In the segment of benign tumors, the most frequent are angiomyolipomas and oncocytomas.
This type of cancer occurs in a greater proportion in men than in women (1.5 cases in men for each one in women) and mostly develops more frequently after the age of 60 or 70. Renal cancer represents between two and three percent of all cancers and represents 90% of solid tumors originating in the kidney. The number of new cases of kidney cancer has been growing for several decades, but this trend has slowed in recent years. Between 2009 and 2018, cases increased by about 1% each year, in part due to the increased use of new imaging tests that can unexpectedly detect small kidney tumors when medical tests are performed for another reason unrelated to cancer.
In the United States, the five-year survival rate for patients with kidney cancer is 76%, although it varies depending on each case and various factors such as the type of cancer, the type of cells, and the degree of development of the kidneys. disease when first diagnosed. About two thirds of patients are diagnosed when the cancer is only in the kidney, which implies that for this group the five-year survival rate increases to 93%. If kidney cancer has spread to other surrounding tissues or organs or to regional lymph nodes, the five-year survival rate is 71%. However, if the cancer has spread to a distant part of the body, the five-year survival rate drops to 14%.
It is proven that there are a number of risk factors for the development of this type of cancer. Some are related to lifestyle. For example, smoking, hypertension or obesity. There is also the hereditary risk. Having a first degree relative who has developed kidney cancer also increases the chances of developing it. Another clear risk factor is chronic renal failure, and more specifically, acquired cystic kidney disease.
