🧬 Ten common cancers
Kidney Cancer
NCI says there may be no signs at all in the early stages. Many kidney cancers are found by accident, on a scan ordered for something else.
What it is
The kidneys are two organs at the back of the abdomen, about level with the lowest ribs. They filter blood and make urine.
NCI names three main types of kidney cancer: renal cell cancer, transitional cell cancer, and Wilms tumor, which is a childhood cancer. Renal cell cancer is the common one in adults. NCI describes it as cancer cells found in the lining of the tubules, the very small tubes inside the kidney that do the filtering.
What to watch for
NCI states plainly that there may be no signs or symptoms in the early stages.
When there are signs, NCI lists:
- Blood in the urine
- A lump in the abdomen
- Pain in the side that does not go away
- Losing appetite
- Losing weight without trying
- Anemia
Because the early stage is often silent, a lot of kidney cancer is found by accident, on a CT or ultrasound ordered for something completely different. That is not a failure of anything. It is simply how a cancer with no test and no early symptoms tends to turn up.
What raises the risk
Things that can change: smoking tobacco. Misusing certain pain medicines, including over-the-counter ones, over a long period. Carrying extra weight. High blood pressure, which is treatable.
Things nobody can change: a family history of kidney cancer, and inherited conditions such as von Hippel-Lindau disease and hereditary papillary renal cancer.
The two treatable ones on that list, weight and blood pressure, are worth doing something about for reasons that have nothing to do with cancer. That is usually the more honest way to think about them.
Is there a test before symptoms start?
No, and NCI says so in unusually blunt terms. Its kidney cancer hub states that NCI does not have evidence-based information about screening for kidney cancer, and that it does not have evidence-based information about prevention of kidney cancer either.
That is not an oversight. Screening a whole population is only worth doing when the test is accurate enough, and when finding the disease earlier changes enough outcomes, to justify the false alarms and the procedures they lead to. That case has not been made for kidney cancer in average-risk adults.
People with a known inherited syndrome are in a different situation, and are usually followed with regular imaging at a specialist center. That is a plan made with a care team.
The numbers
These describe groups of people, not any one person. Each one names the agency it came from and the years it covers.
- New cases each year, United States
- About 80,980
- American Cancer Society projection, published by NCI SEER · 2025 estimate
- Deaths each year
- About 14,510
- American Cancer Society projection, published by NCI SEER · 2025 estimate
- Share of all new cancers
- 4.0 percent
- NCI SEER
- Found while still in the kidney
- 66 percent
- NCI SEER
- Five-year relative survival, still in the kidney
- 93.3 percent
- NCI SEER · diagnoses 2015-2021
- Five-year relative survival, spread to nearby tissue
- 76.4 percent
- NCI SEER · diagnoses 2015-2021
- Five-year relative survival, spread to distant parts of the body
- 19.1 percent
- NCI SEER · diagnoses 2015-2021
What people get wrong
Myth: There is a routine test for it, like a mammogram.
What the evidence says: There is not. NCI states in its own words that it does not have PDQ evidence-based information about screening for kidney cancer, and the same for prevention. There is no federal screening recommendation for people at average risk.
Read the sourceMyth: You would feel a kidney tumor.
What the evidence says: NCI says there may be no signs or symptoms in the early stages. A kidney sits deep in the back of the abdomen, and a tumor can grow there without pressing on anything that hurts.
Read the sourceMyth: Painkillers are harmless in any amount.
What the evidence says: NCI lists misusing certain pain medicines, including over-the-counter ones, for a long time as a risk factor for kidney cancer. This is about long-term misuse, not ordinary occasional use, and it is a question for a pharmacist or clinician rather than a page.
Read the source
Words on this page
- Renal
- Having to do with the kidneys. Renal cell cancer is the most common kind of kidney cancer in adults.
- Flank
- The side of your body between the ribs and the hip. Kidney pain is often felt here.
- Incidental finding
- Something found on a scan that was done for a different reason. Many kidney tumors are found this way.
If you want more detail
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