Key Facts About Kidney Cancer

10. Treatment Options for Kidney Cancer

Once oncologists arrive at a diagnosis, there are various treatments for kidney cancer, and care teams first establish whether a tumor is removable. If it is, surgery is the main treatment—a radical nephrectomy removes the whole kidney, a conservative nephrectomy removes just part of it, and the lymph nodes may be removed, too, if necessary. When the cancer has spread further, tumors elsewhere may be removed, either with the intention to cure or as a palliative treatment. Immunotherapy and targeted drugs are used to treat advanced kidney cancer or as adjuvant therapy to prevent the return of cancer. They tend to be more effective than standard chemo drugs, at least for RCC.

If someone isn't well enough for surgery, ablation can suffice for tumors less than 1.5 inches across. Cryotherapy uses extreme cold and radiofrequency ablation (RFA), which uses heat to destroy a tumor with probes. Advanced radiation therapy or other newer treatments may also be explored, and the possibility of participating in a clinical trial may be on the table.