How is kidney cancer diagnosed?
Kidney cancer doesn’t usually have obvious symptoms in the early stages. It’s often found during a routine physical exam to check your overall health. It may be discovered while you’re having an imaging test like an ultrasound, CT scan, or MRI for another reason. Sometimes, kidney cancer is found because you’re having symptoms like blood in the urine, pain in the side, or unexplained weight loss.
Navigating kidney cancer can be challenging. But getting a quick, accurate diagnosis can help you get answers fast and start treatment when it’s most effective.
Understanding kidney cancer tests
If your doctor suspects kidney cancer, they’ll order one or more tests to confirm a diagnosis.
Screening for kidney cancer
Health care providers use screening tests to find some types of cancer early. Currently, there’s no routine screening for kidney cancer. But if you have a family history of kidney cancer or several risk factors, you should speak with your physician about a genetic cancer risk evaluation to screen for kidney cancer.
Our genetic counselors can help assess your family history and uncover any unusual risks. Together, this information can help you make more informed care decisions.
Kidney cancer staging
After a kidney cancer diagnosis, we use a series of tests to understand the cancer’s stage. Staging helps us record the size, aggressiveness, and growth of a cancer. It also helps us determine the best plan for treatment.
Kidney cancer staging helps doctors understand if and how much the cancer has spread. It also gives doctors a common language for describing tumors.
Staging helps us:
- Figure out the extent of the cancer
- Compare your situation to other patients with kidney cancer
- Review clinical studies to understand how the cancer may behave and how treatments may work for patients in similar stages
- Determine the likely course of the disease (your prognosis)
To stage kidney cancer, we use information gathered from:
- Physical exams
- Blood and urine tests
- Imaging tests, such as CT scans and MRIs
- Procedures such as a kidney biopsy
At Penn Medicine, our pathologists (lab specialists) and radiologists (imaging specialists) are kidney cancer experts. They work to give you a detailed and accurate diagnosis. Their experience with every stage of kidney cancer helps them identify key details that improve treatments.
Kidney cancer has four stages:
- Stage I: The kidney tumor is less than 7 centimeters and has not spread.
- Stage II: The kidney tumor is greater than 7 centimeters and has not spread.
- Stage III: The tumor (any size) is in the kidney and nearby lymph nodes or in the blood vessels and surrounding kidney tissue.
- Stage IV: The cancer has spread to lymph nodes, to other organs, or to the adrenal gland above the kidney.
Experts in diagnosing kidney cancer
When you choose Penn Medicine for your care, you’ll benefit from a team of cancer specialists. This team includes urologists, interventional radiologists, surgeons, and pathologists—all working together to provide a treatment plan that’s right for you.
You’ll also benefit from:
- Timely diagnoses: Our highly trained doctors and advanced practice providers (APPs) are leaders in urologic cancer care who can pinpoint an accurate diagnosis quickly. They stay current with the latest kidney cancer advances and help improve patient care through research. They also help prevent delays by helping you understand and receive the tests you need.
- Dedicated GU cancer pathologists and radiologists: Certain lab and imaging tests are critical for an accurate and detailed diagnosis. Our pathologists and radiologists oversee and analyze these tests, including kidney biopsies and kidney CT scans. Because they specialize in kidney cancer, they catch things others may miss. Their expertise leads to more effective treatment plans.
- Comprehensive kidney cancer treatment: As a large urologic cancer program, we can offer advanced treatments that aren’t available elsewhere. Our kidney cancer experts meet regularly to talk through challenging cases and create treatment plans that consider every possible angle.
Rated “exceptional” by The National Cancer Institute
Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center is a world leader in cancer research, patient care, and education. Our status as a national leader in cancer care is reflected in our continuous designation as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) since 1973, one of 7 such centers in the United States. The ACC is also a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, one of a select few cancer centers in the U.S., that are working to promote equitable access to high-quality, advanced cancer care.