Kidney Cancer Surgery

Causes of kidney cancer

As is the case for other human cancers, kidney cancer is a disease commonly affecting the elderly with nearly two out of three people diagnosed over 65 years old. Kidney cancer is rare in people under 50.

In most cases, there is no identifiable cause for the disease, although there are some associated risk factors :

• Smoking. Smokers have approximately double the risk of nonsmokers.
• Contact with certain chemicals. Workers in contact with chemicals such as aniline dye and heavy metals have a higher risk.
• Obesity.
• End-stage kidney diseases that require dialysis.
• Chronic intake of mild painkillers, such as paracetamol, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) such as ibuprofen and aspirin.
• Hereditary kidney cancer. Most of those affected have a sporadic or a non-hereditary form of kidney cancer. A hereditary form of the disease occurs in a small subset of patients (less than five percent of total) due to the presence of faulty genes. These inherited conditions that predispose one to kidney cancer include von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) syndrome, tuberous sclerosis, Birt-Hogg-Dube syndrome, and hereditary non-VHL clear cell and papillary renal cell cancer.