KIDNEY CANCER
CRYOTHERAPY
Overview
Who is at Risk?
Renal cell carcinoma accounts for nearly 90% of kidney cancers, and occurs most often in people between the ages of 50 and 70. Almost twice as many men are affected as women, and smokers develop renal cell carcinoma about twice as often as nonsmokers
Because the two most common risk factors associated with kidney cancer are fairly widespread in the general population (i.e., smoking and obesity), specific screening for kidney cancer in asymptomatic patients is not practical. Obese smokers are at greatly increased risk for many serious medical conditions, and kidney cancer is often found incidentally during routine physicals or while screening for other conditions in these individuals. Cryoablation may be particularly suited to these patients, since their overall health may make them a poor risk for open radical nephrectomy.
According to The Epidemiology of Renal Cell Carcinoma, by Loren Lipworth, et al, Journal of Urology, Vol. 176, p. 2353-2358, several factors have been associated with an increased risk of Renal Cell Carcinoma:
• Cigarette smoking is the most consistently established causal risk factors.
• Obesity has been linked to an excess risk of renal cell cancer in virtually every study that has examined this relationship.
• The weight of epidemiological evidence suggests that hypertension influences the development of renal cell cancer.
• A family history of RCC is associated with a 2- to 3-fold increased risk of RCC. However, a familial predisposition is identified in less than 2% of RCC cases.
In addition, there are four well-described genetic familial renal neoplasms, including von Hippel-Lindau (VHL), hereditary papillary renal carcinoma (HPRC), Birt-Hogg-Dubé (BHD), and hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer (HLRCC).
If a patient possesses any of these risk factors and reports symptoms of kidney cancer or when incidental findings during routine testing point to a possible diagnosis of renal cancer, the physician is likely to suggest more comprehensive diagnostic procedures to establish (or discard) the RCC diagnosis as soon as possible. This will allow a better chance for finding the tumor at an early stage, when it is still small and contained in the kidney, and suitable for a minimally invasive cryoablation procedure.
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