What is kidney cancer ?
Kidney cancers are a heterogeneous group of malignant tumors. They develop either from kidney cells and are called "renal cell carcinomas" or from cells of the excretory pathways and are called "urothelial cancers". This text will focus solely on renal cell carcinomas, which represent 90% of kidney cancers.
TO REMIND YOU
The kidneys are two organs located under the diaphragm on either side of the spine. The right kidney is situated behind the liver, and the left kidney is behind the pancreas. They roughly have the shape of a bean and are surrounded by a capsule. They measure approximately 12 cm in height, 6 cm in width, and 3 cm in thickness.
The kidneys are vital organs whose main function is to maintain the chemical balance of the blood , filter excess salt and water , eliminate waste products produced by the body such as urea, uric acid, or creatinine, and remove various chemical products such as those derived from medications, drugs, or toxins .
This filtration and elimination function is carried out by renal cells, while the cells of the excretory pathways transport urine to the bladder via the ureter. The kidneys are highly vascularized organs, receiving about a quarter of the cardiac output. Blood enters through the renal artery and, after passing through the kidney, exits via a large renal vein.
Kidney cancers primarily affect adults and represent 3% of adult cancers in France.
In half of the cases, the diagnosis is made in individuals aged 50 to 70 years, and in more than 40% of cases, in individuals over 70 years old. The average age of diagnosis is 65 years.
These cancers affect men twice as often as women. In France, kidney cancers are the 6th most common cancer in men and the 9th most common cancer in women.
In 2018, the number of new kidney cancer cases was estimated at 15,000. The incidence of these cancers (number of new cases per year) has been steadily increasing by 2% per year in men and 1.7% per year in women between 1980 and 2015. This increase could be explained by the aging population and more frequent diagnoses thanks to medical imaging techniques. This rise in incidence has tended to stabilize in recent years (source: Association for Research on Kidney Tumors).
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Article updated on Dec 26, 2024
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