Anasayfa » Kidney Cancer Diagnosis And Staging
The stage of kidney cancer is generally measured by the size of the tumor, whether or not it has spread to other structures nearby, if the lymph nodes are involved, and if the cancer has spread or metastasized to other parts of the body, such as the lungs or bones.
The stage is developed using the results of the pathology report combined with the final surgical results. Although a biopsy, using a needle to obtain a sample of tissue from the kidney tumor, may help to confirm the diagnosis, it is generally not performed for kidney cancer. The reason for this is that the biopsy result is typically not as accurate as the results obtained by removing the entire tumor and determining its grade. Furthermore, biopsies can make planning the most optimal surgical approach complex, and they may also cause the cancer to spread to the area where the biopsy was performed.
The tests that provide the most useful information about a patient’s kidney cancer are CT scans. CT scans provide the most accurate information about the grade and stage of kidney cancer to make treatment decisions. Some patients might have an MRI or an ultrasound test to diagnose kidney cancer, but these may not be able to accurately stage the kidney cancer. The objective is to provide the most accurate information about your kidney cancer to develop a treatment plan personalized to your clinical situation.
Because of their specific pharmacokinetics, the chemotherapy agents for kidney cancer are generally well tolerated by the majority of the oncological patients. Using the new oral kidney cancer chemotherapeutic agents such as Sunitinib, Sorafenib, Temsirolimus, studies have shown that anti-tumor efficacy is not related to the patient’s chronic renal failure. Blood dialysis has no clear indications in renal cancer and would be potentially effective if it might prove its anti-tumor activity. This is the case with Interleukin-2.
The side effects or, better said, toxic effects observed as a result of the kidney cancer therapy are variable ranging from patient to patient. The effects vary directly proportional to the used chemotherapy dose, the time period of exposure to the ascertained substances, and the general state of health of the patient, and the previous treatments for instance radiotherapy, immunotherapy. The toxic effects are known only as a result of the employed substance’s inhibition procedure on conjunct body organs. These phenomena limit the use of a few chemotherapy agents or better said, it is treated with caution, especially in patients with diminished renal function.
At about 50% of the patients, kidney cancer is identified at the first consultation of the patient to a urologist, through renal tumors (without symptoms). Specific to renal tumors are: hematuria, the presence of blood in the urine, backache, hemoptysis, pollakiuria (frequent emission of urine), abdominal mass, erythrocythemia (too many red blood cells in the blood). Other general symptoms can be: asthenia (feeling tired); perspiration especially during the night; dysplasia; severe weight loss.