How is Kidney Cancer Treated?

Depending on your specific kidney cancer type and stage, your treatment plan will likely involve more than one type of therapy and the expertise from more than one type of oncologist. This is why it’s so important to seek cancer care from a multidisciplinary physician team of oncology-focused urologists (who are also surgeons), medical oncologists, interventional radiologists and other specialists who work together to deliver your treatment with the most beneficial timing and sequence. Your treatment plan may include one or more of the following:

  • Active surveillance by which the tumor is watched closely, and treatment initiated only if it grows or changes.
  • Surgery to remove the tumor from your kidney, or the whole kidney, or other areas that contain cancer.
  • Ablation therapy to destroy a kidney tumor with extreme heat or cold, offering a less invasive treatment option, especially important for patients who cannot undergo surgery.
  • Targeted therapy to treat patients with advanced disease by using drugs that find and kill cancer cells by targeting specific characteristics, genes or tissues that help the cancer cells grow.
  • Immunotherapy to trigger a patient’s own immune system to fight the cancer cells.
  • Clinical trials to access the latest emerging options unavailable from other providers.

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