Top 10 Most Asked Questions about Kidney Cancer PART 1
OK, here are the top 10 questions people frequently asked about RCC I collected from the Internet, such as Ask.com, YAHOO answers, yedda.com, etc., these articles took me quite a while to collect and chose top 10 from them by frequence, and give them the best answers. So, I really hope they are helpful.
Here is PART 1.
(These questions are also related to other basic information about RCC, click keywords below to see detail)
Q1. How long does an advanced kidney cancer patient have? Or How long does someone with stage 4 Renal cell carcinoma have?
This is the most frequently asked question about kidney cancer, maybe it’s also the most asked question in other forms of cancer, people always need to know how long they can stay with their family, their loved ones. However, there is not a simple answer for this question, because the situations vary from patient to patient.
First of all, let’s take a look at the official 5-years survival rate. Generally, if the cancer is diagnosed at stage 1, the prognosis is good because a complete surgical resection of the cancerous growth is possible, the survival rate is 90%. At stage 2, the survival rate for 5 years is 65 – 75%. At stage 3 the kidney cancer survival rate drops to 40 – 70% for 5 years because the cancer would have spread to the nearby lymph nodes. At stage 4, if the cancer has reached the other organs of the body, the overall 5 year survival rate is barely 10%. (Also see this simplified staging form)
If you still want to know exactly how long does an advanced kidney cancer patient have, please also consider the following factors, such as the general health state of the patient, patient’s emotional and spiritual strength, how fast does the cancer grow and patient’s treatment (see treatment options). All of these factors make the survival rate vary from patient to patient.
Survival rates are based on large groups of people. They cannot be used to predict what will happen to a particular person. Your doctor may tell you an OFFICIAL time if how long you have according to your cancer stage, grade and other factors, but no one can be sure about it.
Such as this question I saw on Yahoo Answer:
“Q: My husband was just diagnosed with kidney cancer,He is only 40. I was told that it had already spread to his lung (5 tumors) He has already had the kidney removed and we were told that it was in the tissue also.
A: My wife has stage IV kidney cancer. She was diagnosed 5 years ago. At that time survival rate was very low, however a lot of advancements have been made sense her diagnosis. She is on a target therapy caller Nexavar and her tumors are stable. I have also heard good things about another target therapy call sutent. When she was diagnosed there was less than a 10% chance that she would make it one year. I am happy to say that five years later, she is alive and doing very well. Good luck to you and your husband.”
another article: 4 most important factors in extending life for advanced kidney cancer patients
Q2. How to relieve pain for an advanced kidney cancer patient?
The pain of advanced kidney cancer is hard to tolerate. Cancer pain is caused by the tumour pressing on bones, nerves or other organs in your body in most cases. To relieve symptom, the ideal way is to remove the source of the pain, for example, through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation (3D Conformal Radiotherapy (3D-CRT), in general, radiotherapy does not work as well for kidney cancer as for other kinds of cancer, but as a palliative treatment, radiotherapy plays a good role in shrinking the tumors, easing pain and other symptoms of advanced kidney cancer that has spread to bone, brain or other areas of the body. 
Research shows that combination of radiotherapy and other therapies (such as targeted therapy) can do a better job.) or some other form of treatment. If that cannot be done, pain medications can usually control the pain. Strong opioid medications for advanced renal cell carcinoma includes: morphine, oxycodone, hydromorphone, fentanyl or methadone, but these pain medications have many risks. Still as I said in another SUTENT side effects post, read the instruction books or official websites first before whatever you are going to take.
Having your pain controlled appropriately can help you maintain your quality of life. It is important to realize that medicines to relieve pain do not interfere with your other treatments and that controlling pain will often help you be more active and continue your daily activities.
And others are treatment-related, such as such as chemotherapy, radiation and surgery — are another potential source of cancer pain. Chemotherapy can cause many potentially painful side effects, including mouth sores, diarrhea and nerve damage, surgery can be painful, and it may take time to recover.
Specialized treatment, such as nerve blocks, also may be applicable. Nerve blocks are a local anesthetic that is injected around or into a nerve, which prevents pain messages traveling along that nerve pathway from reaching the brain. Other therapies, such as acupuncture, acupressure, massage, physical therapy, relaxation, meditation and humor, may help as well.
Many doctors are slow to take pain seriously. They fail to ask about it, and they are afraid to use powerful painkillers. So don’t be afraid to pester them. My experience is that some are also unwilling to learn. After reading this you may know more than some of them do.
Again, for some patients, palliative treatments such as embolization or radiation therapy may be the best option. Controlling symptoms such as pain is an important part of treatment at any stage of the disease.
And again, 3 books I will recommend you to have:
100 Questions & Answers About Kidney Cancer (100 Questions & Answers about)
Davis’s Pocket Clinical Drug Reference
I recently lost my mother ot renal...