What Are the Stages and Types of Kidney Cancer?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Pavlos Msaouel
In this program:
Though kidney cancer was previously viewed as a single disease, several types are now recognized. Watch as Dr. Pavlos Msaouel shares insight about various types of kidney cancer and what occurs during the different stages of kidney cancer.
Transcript
Broderick Rodell:
Decades ago, kidney cancer was looked at as one disease, but we've since come a long way and recognizing there are many types, so do Dr. Msaouel, what are the various types of kidney cancers you and your colleagues treat?
Dr. Pavlos Msaouel:
You're very correct. Kidney cancer used to be thought as just one disease, but now we understand that it's not just one disease, but many different types, foams, the most common type of kidney cancer is called clear cell kidney cancer, and we call it like that because the cells look clear under the microscope and 75 percent, about 75 percent of all kidney cancer cases are clear cell kidney cancer. Very often when you look on the Internet and it says kidney cancer, very often, that's what it is meant by that clear cell now, the other 25 percent goes under the umbrella term non-clear cell kidney cancer, and all we call it that because the cells don't look clear under the microscope, but within that umbrella term, there are many, many, many different subtypes like papillary kidney cancer, translocation kidney cancer, chromophobe kidney cancer, renal neuroblastoma, many, many, many different names, and it's important to know which one of them you actually have because each one is managed differently.
Broderick Rodell:
Very interesting. Can you elaborate on the various stages of kidney cancer?
Dr. Pavlos Msaouel:
So, there are multiple ways that you can determine how extensive the kidney cancer is, but one typical way is by what we call the AJCC staging system or classic staging system, where a kidney tumor that is less than seven centimeters in size is called stage I a higher state. Stage II is when the kidney tumor is greater than seven centimeters in size and then stage III, the kidney cancer is still confined in the kidney, but may start in the major veins or sometimes they may have spread to the local lymph nodes, that's what we call stage III. Then the final stage, the more extensive stage is stage IV, where the kidney cancer may have spread to other organs, and this spreading to other organs is...the technical term is metastasis, so the earlier the stage, let's say stage I, the better on average, the outcomes for patients diagnosed with kidney cancer.
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