kidney cancer
Meaning of kidney cancer: Kidney cancer includes renal cell carcinoma in adults and Wilms tumor in young children, arising from different structures within the kidney.
Definition of kidney cancer
Kidney cancer refers to cancer that forms in the tissue of the kidneys, the paired organs that filter blood and produce urine. The most common form in adults is renal cell carcinoma, which arises from the lining of the small tubules within the kidney responsible for filtering blood and forming urine.
A less common adult form, renal pelvis carcinoma, arises instead from the central, funnel shaped part of the kidney where urine collects before draining toward the bladder, and it behaves more like cancers of the urinary tract lining than like renal cell carcinoma. In children, the most frequent kidney cancer is Wilms tumor, which develops from immature kidney tissue and typically appears in early childhood.
Because these different forms of kidney cancer arise from different types of tissue within the same organ, they are evaluated and managed somewhat differently from one another, even though all are broadly grouped together under the general term kidney cancer.
Used in a sentence
Imaging identified a mass consistent with kidney cancer in the right kidney.
Good to know
Wilms tumor and renal cell carcinoma are both called kidney cancer but arise from different tissue and occur in very different age groups, a distinction that shapes how each is evaluated.