How are kidney tumors diagnosed and treated?

With the current popularity of physical examination and the improvement of imaging technology, the detection rate of kidney masses is increasing year by year. Renal masses are generally classified into two categories: benign and malignant. Benign renal masses include simple renal cysts and renal malformation tumors. Besides, most of the substantial renal occupancies are malignant. In adults, renal cell carcinoma and renal pelvis carcinoma are common, while in infants and children, the most common is nephroblastoma. How to diagnose kidney tumor: Most kidney tumors have no obvious symptoms in early stage, and many of them are found by physical examination. If not detected in time by examination, the disease may be delayed to the later stage, and systemic symptoms such as hematuria, lumbar and abdominal pain as well as fever, emaciation and weakness may appear. For asymptomatic kidney masses, their diagnosis mainly relies on various medical examination equipment such as ultrasound, CT and MRI. Ultrasound: As a routine item of physical examination, most patients rely on ultrasound to discover kidney masses. Ultrasound is a non-invasive special examination, which can be used as a preliminary screening test for kidney masses and has a very important value for the identification of renal masses, renal cysts and hydronephrosis. CT: CT examination can help to understand the size and location of the kidney mass, and identify whether it is substantial or cystic, determine whether it is renal malformation tumor or renal cancer according to the presence or absence of fat density, and also determine the extent of kidney injury, degree, size of hematoma, etc. Enhanced CT examination can determine whether the mass has vascular supply according to whether the mass has enhancement performance on the film, and briefly help to determine whether malignant tumor is possible. Magnetic resonance: It can help to diagnose the nature of renal mass, but the resolution in space and with calcified lesions is not as good as CT; magnetic resonance angiography can show renal blood vessels better, which is suitable for renal artery stenosis, renal vein thrombosis, etc., and helps to stage renal cancer; while urinary magnetic resonance imaging can show the morphology of renal pelvis and calyces without contrast, which is suitable for patients with severely impaired renal function and cannot receive enhanced CT examination. It is suitable for patients whose renal function is too impaired to receive enhanced CT. According to the nature of renal tumors, we divide renal tumors into benign tumors and malignant tumors, and their treatments are as follows: 1. Renal malignant tumors: The most common diseases among the substantial kidney masses are renal tumors, and most of the renal tumors are malignant, among which renal cancer is the most common substantial malignant tumor of kidney, accounting for 90% of adult renal tumors, also known as renal cell carcinoma, renal adenocarcinoma, renal parenchymal carcinoma, etc., ranking the It is also known as renal cell carcinoma, renal adenocarcinoma, renal parenchymal carcinoma, etc. It ranks seventh among all tumors and accounts for 2%-3% of malignant tumors. Early detection and early surgical resection of this disease is the key. At present, the gold standard of kidney cancer treatment is laparoscopic radical resection of kidney cancer, in which the kidney is completely removed. Of course, if the tumor is small in size or the patient has only one kidney, laparoscopic enucleation of kidney tumor can also be considered, which can preserve the kidney to the maximum extent and remove only the tumor. In addition, if the patient is too old or physically weak to tolerate surgery, or if the tumor is too advanced to be removed surgically, other non-surgical treatment options can be tried, such as radiotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted drug therapy, etc. Among them, the more effective one is targeted drug therapy, which inhibits the growth of tumor by taking an anti-tumor angiogenesis drug orally. However, the disadvantage is that the drug is only effective for some kidney cancers, and the cost is very expensive. 2.Benign renal tumors: Benign renal tumors such as angiosmooth muscle lipoma (referred to as misshapen tumor) are benign diseases, and if the mass is small, we can wait for observation first and review the CT regularly. If the size of the tumor is large, it is recommended to remove the tumor directly because of the risk of hemorrhage. In addition, for some tumors with vascular supply, since it is not clear whether they are malignant or not before surgery, there is a risk of tumor spread and metastasis if treatment is delayed, so direct laparoscopic enucleation of the mass can be considered in these cases.