Kidney Cancer

If you have been diagnosed with kidney cancer, you can count on the kidney disease specialists at UMass Memorial Medical Center for expert care. Kidney cancer strikes more than 36,000 people in this country annually. Here in the Worcester region, kidney cancer rates are reported to be higher than the national average.

Some of the kidney cancers we treat:

• Renal cell carcinoma – The most common kidney cancer accounts for nearly 80 percent of all kidney cancers.
• Wilms’ tumor, a childhood cancer, is responsible for about 95 percent of pediatric kidney cancer cases.

Our team works with a variety of specialists to evaluate warning signs and early symptoms, which may include:

• Recurrent fever
• A lump or mass in the kidney area
• Rapid weight loss
• Lingering, dull ache or pain in the side, abdomen, or lower back
• Feeling fatigued or in poor health

Kidney Cancer Treatments

Our team of caregivers often treats kidney cancer with a surgery called nephrectomy. Depending on the tumor size, and the location and stage of the disease, the surgeon may choose to remove the entire kidney (radical nephrectomy) or just the portion affected by disease (partial nephrectomy).

In addition to surgery, our team may use other treatments to give you the edge when fighting kidney cancer. These could include:

• Cryoblation or radiofrequency ablation – Using heat or cold to treat the tumor
• Radiation therapy
• Chemotherapy 
• Immunotherapy
• Targeted therapy – Using drugs or other substances to attack cancer cells while doing little damage to normal cells
• Kidney sparing surgery