RENAL CELL CARCINOMA (RCC)

• Account for 90% of all renal malignancies; 2% of all cancers in adults
• Median age 55-60 yr; male: female = 2-3:1; bilateral 1%
• Most RCCs are sporadic and develop at random, but 5% are familial.
• Patients present with a triad of hematuria (59%), abdominal mass (45%), flank pain (41%); also weight loss (28%), anemia (21%), fever (7%); metastases as first sign of disease (5%); paraneoplastic syndromes (5%)
• Often produce hormones resulting in polycythemia, hypercalcemia, hypertension, feminization, Cushing's syndrome
• Occasionally regresses without treatment
• Most common recipient of metastasis into a tumor (most common donor is lung)