About 3 to 4 percent of kidney cancers are hereditary. They are prevalent in families and are passed down from parent to child, hence the name familial kidney cancer. A specific gene mutation in these particular families causes kidney cancer to develop and is passed down from generation to generation.
Because every cell in the patient carries this mutation, multiple tumors can usually develop in both kidneys, and in some families, tumors can also grow in other organs, such as the brain, eyes, adrenal glands, and pancreas.
Another feature of familial inheritance is the early age of onset, usually 20 to 40 years, much earlier than the 50 years or older for sporadic kidney cancer. In younger patients with kidney cancer, familial inheritance is mostly suspected and sometimes a definite family history of kidney cancer can be found.
The definitive hereditary kidney cancers that have been identified include:
- VHL syndrome
- Hereditary papillary renal adenocarcinoma
- Hereditary smooth muscle tumor disease kidney cancer
- BHD (Birt-Hogg-Dube) syndrome
For patients with hereditary renal carcinoma, if the kidney tumor diameter <3cm , you can withhold treatment and choose to watch and wait; when the maximum tumor diameter ≥3cm you can consider surgery, with the preference for kidney unit preservation surgery.