Monday, November 9, 2009

KIDNEY CANCER


Kidney cancer is not a disease per se, but rather is a group of cancers that arise form different parts of the kidney tubules. Kidney cancers were divided into the following subtypes: the common or conventional renal cell carcinoma, papillary renal cell carcinoma, chromophobe renal cell carcinoma, collecting duct carcinoma (including medullary carcinoma), and renal cell carcinoma, which can not be classified. An expert panel also classified benign growths such as kidney metanephric adenoma, metanephric adenofibroma, and renal oncocytoma.

Another system used to Quantify the aggressiveness of kidney cancer is grading. By looking at the cells that make up a cancer, the cells are divided into low grade tumors which are less aggressive and higher grade tumors which are more aggressive. The Fuhrman classification was originally designed for conventional kidney cancers but is often used to grade all differentkidney cancer varieties. Tumors are graded from I to IV with the lower grade tumors being less aggressive. Just as with the different subtypes, different grades have different outcomes.

Kidney cancer can present with a variety of different signs and symptoms, which are listed below. None of these signs or symptoms are specific to kidney cancer itself. Indeed, kidney cancer is not the most common disease associated with the majority of these symptoms. Today, the majority of kidney cancers are discovered while very small in size and will typically have no associated symptoms.

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