For weak or elderly patients with very small tumors and short life expectancies, observation may all that is needed, since some kidney tumors are slow growing. For patients who have pain from the kidney or from metastatic disease, giving radiation to those specific areas can decrease pain and bleeding from the tumor. Finally, medications can be used to control symptoms as well. Kidney tumors can invade other organs in the abdomen, or can spread to the lungs, lymph nodes, bones, or brain. For such patients, surgery may be helpful, but it will need to be assisted with other therapies in order to keep the patient free from the effects of the cancer as long as possible.
Kidney cancer is resistant to traditional chemotherapy, hormonal therapy and radiation therapy.
However, it can respond to immunotherapy, which involves the use of medications to treat cancer by stimulating the patient s own immune system to destroy the cancer. By activating the immune system, the body is trained to recognize the cancer as foreign tissue and attacks it through a series of steps performed by specialized cells. These substances are proteins made by the body and function to activate the immune system. Without the ability to synthesize large quantities of these cytokines, immunotherapy would not be possible. By this complex process, some patients have been cured of their cancer even though it has spread throughout their body.