Wilms tumor
Meaning of Wilms tumor: Wilms tumor is the most common kidney cancer in children, usually diagnosed before school age and often highly treatable.
Definition of Wilms tumor
Wilms tumor is a cancer that develops in the kidney, arising from immature kidney cells that did not mature normally during fetal development. It is the most common type of kidney cancer occurring in children.
Wilms tumor is usually diagnosed in young children, most often before school age, and often presents as a noticeable abdominal mass or swelling, sometimes found by a parent or during a routine examination, rather than through symptoms the child reports.
Wilms tumor can remain confined to the kidney or spread to nearby structures such as the lymph nodes, lungs, or liver, and treatment generally combines surgery with chemotherapy, and sometimes radiation therapy, an approach that has made Wilms tumor one of the more successfully treated childhood cancers.
Also known as
Used in a sentence
Imaging confirmed a Wilms tumor after a parent noticed abdominal swelling in the child.
Good to know
Wilms tumor is generally identified in early childhood as a painless abdominal mass rather than through symptoms the child reports, which is why it is often first noticed by a parent or caregiver.