Kidney cancer is a form of cancer that develops when there is irregular cell growth in your kidneys. It is a fairly common form of cancer and can be terminal if you do not catch it and begin treatment. The symptoms of kidney cancer are more pronounced than other types of cancer, it is often caught in the early stages.
If caught in time, kidney cancer is treatable, and you can make a full recovery. As with most forms of cancer, your treatment plan will likely include chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and other forms of therapy and treatment.
In most cases, surgery is the best treatment option for people with kidney cancer. There are several different types of surgery, and the goal of each is to surgically remove the cancerous tumour from within the affected kidney.
During a partial nephrectomy, your surgeon will remove part of the kidney, limiting their excision to the cancerous portion.
If the cancer has spread too far throughout the kidney and a partial nephrectomy is not possible, your surgeon will perform a radical nephrectomy. With this type of surgery, you will have your entire kidney, plus some of the surrounding tissue, removed.
While it is always preferable to do a partial nephrectomy so that you have two viable kidneys remaining, it is essential to remove all of the cancer. Therefore, if you need a radical nephrectomy, it is still a better option than other kidney cancer treatments. You have two kidneys, and if you need to have one removed due to cancer, the remaining kidney can do the job of both kidneys.
Unlike with other forms of cancer, chemotherapy is not always the primary treatment for kidney cancer. For unknown reasons, cancer cells in the kidney do not respond well to chemo, so it is only used in rare instances when other treatments are unsuccessful.
Radiation therapy is where your doctor uses high-powered laser beams to destroy cancer cells. As with chemotherapy, radiation is not the preferred treatment for kidney cancer. It is typically used when other methods of treatment are unsuccessful. Radiation is also used to prevent kidney cancer from spreading to other parts of the body.
Immunotherapy is a great treatment option for people with kidney cancer. Immunotherapy uses medications and supplements to boost your immune system and strengthen it in your fight against cancer. Immunotherapy is effective for treating kidney cancer, as well as for protecting your compromised immune system from disease and infection.
One of the newer treatment options for kidney cancer is to use extreme heat and cold to destroy cancer cells. This treatment, known as ablation, is often used when you do not want to have surgery or surgery is not an option. Cryoablation and radiofrequency ablation are the two most common forms of ablation, and they are both viable options for destroying cancer cells.
Targeted therapy is where your doctor uses specific drugs and medications to target certain parts of cancer cells. Rather than attacking the cells head-on, targeted therapy is designed to block certain components and characteristics within cancer cells. In doing this, targeted therapy can break the cells down from the inside, thus killing the cancer. Targeted therapy is another viable treatment option if surgery is impossible.
While kidney cancer is a fairly treatable form of cancer, it is vital to catch it in the early stages. If kidney cancer has time to spread to other parts of the body, it is far more difficult to treat.