Kidney Cancer Types

Kidney cancer starts in your kidneys. This cancer usually takes the form of renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer. About 90 percent of kidney cancer patients gain diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma.

About Renal Cell Carcinoma

Renal cell carcinoma includes several subtypes, according to how the cancer cells look under a microscope. Your type of kidney cancer determines your treatment options.

Renal cell carcinoma usually develops as one tumor in one of your kidneys. Some people have two or more tumors, even tumors in both kidneys.

Subtypes of renal cell carcinoma include:

• Clear cell renal cell carcinoma, affecting 70 percent of renal cell carcinoma patients and identified by characteristic pale or clear cancer cells
• Papillary renal cell carcinoma, affecting about ten percent of renal cell carcinoma patients and characterized by finger-like tumor projections
• Chromophobe renal cell carcinoma, affecting five percent of renal cell carcinoma patients with much larger pale cancer cells easily recognized under a microscope
• Other, rare renal cell carcinoma subtypes that make up less than one percent of cases, including:
  • Collecting duct RCC
  • Multilocular cycstic RCC
  • Medullary carcinoma
  • Mucinous tubular and spindle cell carcinoma
  • Neuroblastoma-associated RCC
  • Unclassified renal cell carcinoma

Other Kidney Cancers

Besides renal cell carcinoma, other kidney cancers include transitional cell carcinomas, renal sarcomas and Wilms tumors.

• Transitional cell carcinomas affect five to ten percent of kidney cancer patients
• Renal sarcomas start in the kidney’s blood vessels or connective tissues, affecting less than one percent of all kidney cancer patients
• Wilms tumor or nephroblastoma cancers almost always affect children

Benign Kidney Tumors

Not all kidney tumors are cancerous, meaning they do not spread to other parts of your body. But these kidney tumors still cause problems for people affected by them. Treatment for these tumors usually includes removing or otherwise destroying them. How your benign kidney tumor is treated depends on multiple factors, such as number of tumors, tumor size, symptoms and whether the tumors appear in both kidneys. Your overall health also plays a role in treatment options.

Non-cancerous kidney tumors include renal adenoma, oncocytoma, angiomyolipoma.