Kidney cancer prognosis

Many people tend to confuse the words diagnosis and prognosis. While the first refers to the detection and identification of the disease or disorder, the latter word means what is the medical opinion about the course and outcome of the discovered disease or disorder. When a cancer is in the question diagnosis means establishing the disease, while prognosis refers to the prediction what are the chances to cure the cancer or how long the affected person will live.

Kidney cancer prognosis

When one develops kidney cancer the doctor after diagnosing it makes prognosis how long the patient will live. The prognosis is made after careful consideration of various factors, such as the type of cancer, the phase of the cancer, the place of the cancer, age and general health of the affected person. Once the prognosis is done the patient should not take it to be absolutely and conclusive truth since it is just a prediction which the doctor makes after considering many factors which are related to the affected person. As we have already said, how long one will live differs from person to person.

Stages of kidney cancer and survival rate

The stage of kidney cancer is detected by several different methods. However, in most cases it is detected by the means of TNM staging system.

The kidney cancer has four stages and in the first stage, the kidney cancer is only limited to the kidneys and it is not spread to other surrounding tissues. It is estimated that the people with diagnosed kidney cancer in the first stage have the survival rate for the next five or more years about 95%. In the second stage, the kidney cancer starts to spread to the nearby areas and about 70% of those with this stage diagnosed has chances to live for the next five years. The third stage of the kidney cancer is diagnosed when the cancer is spread to the surrounding tissues, lymph glands and adrenal glands. From 40 to 70% of the cases with the third stage of kidney cancer has the chances to live about five years from the time of diagnosing the disease. In the fourth stage, the cancer has already expanded to the other parts in the body like lungs and liver, for example. It is estimated that about 10% of the cases with the kidney cancer which already in the fourth metastatic phase has the cancer to live for the next five years.