Portal:Medicine/Selected article/2, 2008



Renal cell carcinoma is the most common form of kidney cancer arising from the renal tubule. It is the most common type of kidney cancer in adults. Initial treatment is surgery. It is notoriously resistant to radiation therapy and chemotherapy, although some cases respond to immunotherapy. The advent of targeted cancer therapies such as sunitinib has vastly improved the outlook for treatment of RCC.

The classic triad is hematuria (blood in the urine), flank pain and an abdominal mass. This is now known as the 'too late triad' because by the time patients present with symptoms, their disease is often advanced beyond a curative stage. Today, the majority of renal tumors are asymptomatic and are detected incidentally on imaging, usually for an unrelated cause.

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