Kidney cancer is an abnormal growth of cells in the kidney that is cancerous (malignant). Unlike noncancerous (benign) tumors, malignant tumors can spread to other parts of your body. The kidneys are the organs that filter your blood and keep it clean. They move waste out of your blood and into your urine. Urine passes from the kidneys, through the ureters, and into the bladder. When you urinate, these wastes leave the body.
RISK FACTORS
There are a number of risk factors that can increase your chances of getting kidney cancer. They include:
• Age. The likelihood of developing kidney cancer increases with age.
• Family history of kidney cancer.
• Being African American, American Indian, or Native Alaskan.
• Smoking.
• Being male.
…show more content…
Treatment may include one or a combination of the following:
• Surgery. This may include surgery to remove:
○ Just the tumor (nephron sparing surgery).
○ The entire kidney (nephrectomy).
○ The kidney, some of the surrounding healthy tissue, and nearby lymph nodes, as well as the adrenal gland in certain cases (radical nephrectomy).
• Radiation therapy. This uses high-energy rays to kill cancer cells.
• Cryoablation. This uses a needle that delivers gas into the cancer cells to freeze them.
• Radiofrequency ablation. This uses a needle to deliver high-energy radio waves that heat and burn the cancer cells.
• Arterial embolization. This uses a tiny tube inserted through a groin artery and threaded up towards the kidney tumor. A substance injected into the tube blocks blood flow to the tumor, causing it to die.
• Drug therapy. Drugs may be used to help your body fight the cancer or to stop cancer cells from growing. This may include chemotherapy, biological therapy, and immunological therapy.
HOME CARE INSTRUCTIONS
• Take medicines, supplements, and herbal remedies only as directed by your health care provider.
• Maintain a healthy
The kidneys are located in the posterior section of the retroperitoneal cavity and are small, dark red kidney-bean shaped organs in the lower part of the rib cage (Marieb, The Urinary System, 2015). They are undervalued organs considering how essential they are for the body’s ability to maintain homeostasis. The kidneys filter about 120-150 quarts of blood to produce about 1-2 quarts of urine each day (NIH, 2014). Blood initially enters the kidneys through the renal artery. It then flows into the segmental artery before moving into the interlobar artery. From the interlobar artery the filtrate enters the arcuate artery before branching into the cortical radiate artery, which feeds into the afferent arteriole, before passing into the glomerulus where it begins to filter out waste. The filtered waste is then collected by renal tubule. The tubules drain to collecting ducts and all of these components together makes up a small unit called a nephron. Each kidney has over a million nephrons (Marieb, Blood Supply/ Nephrons, 2015). They filter out wastes that run through different body systems via blood; the majority of that waste is nitrogenous wastes, toxins, excess fluids, electrolytes, and drugs. These waste products are eliminated as urine. While waste are removed vital enzymes, hormones, and water are returned
This procedure is referred to as percutaneous nephrolithotomy. In cases where the stone is clogged in the ureter, a rigid ureteroscope is pushed through the bladder up to the ureter. The stones are subsequently broken up using a laser of defined intensity.
1. Chemotherapy tends to be the conventional lung cancer treatment used that everyone has heard of. Today it uses a cocktail of over 100 different drugs and works by destroying the cancerous cells and stopping their spread. However, although considered to be an acceptable treatment, it does tend to cause many unwanted side-effects.
In an ureteroscopy, an uteroscope is used, which is a long tubular tool including an eyepiece, is used to locate the stone and fed up through the urethra and into the bladder ending in the ureter. Once the stone is located, the urologist can then break the stone using laser energy. Another procedure used to remove a kidney stone is a percutaneous nephrolithotomy, in which a wire-thin tool is used, a nephroscope, to locate the stone and remove it, feeding it right into the kidney through an incision made in the
Cancer is a disease in which cells multiply out of control and gradually build a mass of tissue called a tumor. There has been a large amount of research dedicated to the treatment and cure of cancer. Several types of treatments have been developed. The following are just some of the major examples of cancer therapy: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, biologic therapy, biorhythms, unconventional treatments, and hyperthermia. Each type of treatment is discussed in detail below.
For cancer patients there are several treatment options. Surgery can remove cancerous tumors, chemotherapy uses drugs for treatment, and radiation therapy. The doctor in charge of the patient’s treatment may also choose to use radiation therapy. “Radiation
The urinary system is composed of the kidneys, the ureters, the urinary bladder, and the urethra ("Urinary System", n.d.). These organs and tubes shape what is called the urinary tract, the body’s drainage system for removing urine from the kidneys, storing the urine, and then expelling it during urination ("Urinary System", n.d.). The first part of the urinary system is the kidneys. The kidneys are a pair of bean-shaped organs located in the upper abdominal cavity against the back muscles ("Urinary System", n.d.). The kidneys are responsible for filtering the blood to remove waste and chemicals to produce urine ("Urinary System", n.d.). Blood is carried through the renal arteries to the kidneys where they are filtered by nephrons - tiny filtering units in both kidneys that remove harmful substances and waste from the blood (Durani, 2015). The toxins and waste sifted by these nephrons are blended with water to produce urine (Durani, 2015). On average, the kidneys will filter 120 to 150 quarts of blood a day to produce about 1 to 2 quarts of urine ("The Urinary Tract & How It Works", 2014). The next
Chemotherapy is used for many different things. Chemo can be used to keep cancer from spreading, slow the cancers growth, kill cancer cells that have already spread to other parts of the body, relieve symptoms such as pain that is caused by cancer, shrink tumors, and of course to cure cancer. Chemo can be given in many different ways. It can be given as an injection, through an IV, topically, directly into the body cavity, and orally. Oral chemotherapy is given in the form of a liquid, tablet, or capsule that you swallow. Oral chemo is not as strong as other forms but can work just as well. Chemo given through an IV is the most common.
Radiation therapy is the use of “high-energy particles or waves, such as x-rays, gamma rays, electron beams, or protons, used to destroy or damage cancer cells” (Hage 1). The human body consists of a large number of cells which grow and multiply every day, however when cancer cells arise they multiply faster than a normal cell would. Cancer is considered hundreds of different diseases because there are so many types of them and is identified by its abnormal cell growth and ability to migrate throughout the body (Aggarwal). Radiation therapy helps with breaking down cancer cells and eventually kills them, stopping the cell division of these harmful cells. In the attempt to prevent these cancer cells to continue to multiply, healthy cells may also be destroyed but luckily radiation therapy has different methods to target the cells it wants to kill. Ideally, doctors only want to destroy the harmful cells but radiation has
...in the United States is ABVD which includes the drugs Adriamycin, Bleomycin, Vinblastine, and Dacarbazine. Other treatments for lymphoma include radiation therapy, monoclonal antibodies, and stem cell transplants. Radiation therapy uses high-energy rays or particles to kill cancer cells. Monoclonal antibodies use cloned antibodies like the immune system does to kill cancer cells. Stem cell transplants are injected to help create other healthy cells that can then be used to help kill cancer.
Hemodialysis uses a dialyzer, or special filter, to clean your blood. The dialyzer connects to a machine. During treatment, your blood travels through tubes into the dialyzer. The dialyzer filters out wastes and extra fluids. Then the newly cleaned blood flows through another set of tubes and back into your body.
If one is affected by cancer, there are treatments to help take away this illness affecting their body. This essay is about a specific type of treatment for cancer, radiation therapy. There are different types of forms of particles for radiation, for example, protons and waves like x-rays and visible light. These types of radiations are grouped on how much energy they contain because they can cause different effects. A low type of energy radiation can be radio waves and heat, also known as non-ionizing radiation.
Kidney Function Introduction and definition of terms: The kidneys are the main organs in the urinary system. They filter waste products out of blood from the renal artery. These are then excreted. Useful solutes are reabsorbed into the blood. They also have a major homeostatic role in the body, and help to control the water content (osmoregulation) and pH of the blood.
...ce the kidney is unable to do so. In severe cases a kidney transplant will need to occur (Nemours, 2012).
Radiation therapy uses high-energy ionizing radiation to kill the tumor cells and this procedure generally reduces the risk of cancer recurrence by approximately 70%. However, it often induces adverse side effects on normal tissues adjacent to the radiation site. For both of the above therapies the tumor should be within clinical detection range and accessible to therapeutic procedures. Chemotherapy is a major post-surgical treatment used to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence. Chemotherapy decreases the tumor size by affecting rapidly dividing and highly metabolizing cells, which are the main characteristics of malignant cells. A large number of chemotherapeutics are clinically available like Gemcitabine, doxorubicin, paclitaxel etc. In many