Understanding Metastatic Kidney Cancer: Causes, Symptoms, and Stages
This article explains metastatic renal cell carcinoma, its causes, progression stages, symptoms, and diagnostic methods. It highlights how the disease spreads through blood, lymphatic systems, and tissues, emphasizing early detection and stages for better understanding.
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Understanding Metastatic Kidney Cancer
Renal cell carcinoma originates when abnormal cells grow within the kidney's tubules, leading to kidney cancer. These tubules filter waste from blood to produce urine. When the cancer advances and spreads beyond the kidney, it becomes metastatic renal cell carcinoma, affecting lymph nodes, other organs, and bones.
The spread occurs through metastasis, which can happen via three primary routes:
The cancer cells can enter the bloodstream, traveling rapidly to distant organs and causing extensive tissue damage.
Cancer can invade the lymphatic system, a network responsible for toxin removal and immune response, facilitating cancer spread.
It can also extend into surrounding tissues, leading to further metastasis.
Early detection is challenging because initial symptoms are subtle. As the disease progresses, symptoms like night sweats, swelling, fever, fatigue, lumps, pain, and blood in urine become evident.
In advanced stages, it can affect bones, liver, lungs, brain, and adrenal glands, resulting in pain, fractures, neurological issues, respiratory difficulties, and jaundice. The disease stages are:
Stage 1 & 2: Cancer is confined to the kidney.
Stage 3: Cancer spreads to nearby lymph nodes and organs, marking an advanced phase.
Stage 4: Cancer extends beyond the original site, affecting major organs.
Diagnosis involves physical exams, patient history review, urinalysis, and imaging tests like CT scans and MRI to determine the extent of the spread.
