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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