Kidney Cancer Facts

Every 6 minutes someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with kidney cancer.

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Kidney cancer is the eighth leading cancer, by incidence, but given current trends, kidney cancer incidence will pass bladder cancer and will become the seventh leading cancer by incidence in the U.S. by the end of this year.

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According to the NCI’s 2022 Report to the Nation, for males, kidney cancer is one of only three cancers of the 18 most common cancer types where the incidence rate increased. Among females, kidney cancer was one of seven cancer types that increased. Kidney cancer mortality followed the overall downward trend of most cancers, in this case, probably due to the more effective immunotherapies and the early diagnoses due to incidental findings from asymptomatic imaging uncovering renal tumors that result in lower cancer stage diagnoses.

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At the time of diagnosis, from 25% to 33% of cases are already metastatic. Localized disease can turn metastatic even 10 years after nephrectomy.

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But kidney cancer continues to lag in research funding, especially in private foundation funding. There is still no screening test for kidney cancer and neither of the two FDA-approved adjuvant therapies have yet to show an improvement in overall survival.

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Kidney cancer continues to affect men more than women with 64% of both the incidence and mortality rates being for males versus 36% for females. Studies have not shown the reasons for the higher risk factors for men over women, which, one would think, would inspire biological studies to examine gender differences.