Kidney Cancer – Our Treatment Options

Kidney Cancer Treatment Center in Orange County, CA

Cyberknife OC- Kidney Cancer Treatment

At Orange County CyberKnife, we believe there’s always hope – no matter how serious the diagnosis. As a leading cancer treatment and radiation oncology center serving the greater Orange County, CA area, we regularly create comprehensive treatment plans for patients facing advanced stages of serious cancers, working to help our patients beat cancer even when the situation seems dire. Kidney cancer is among the most common forms of cancer in the US, and OC CyberKnife is proud to offer a number of treatment options to our kidney cancer patients.

Detecting Kidney Cancer

As with any form of cancer, the best option for fighting kidney cancer is through early detection and treatment. Both you and your doctor should be on the lookout for the most common signs of kidney cancer, and if either of you notice anything, it’s important for you to get further testing. Some of the common signs of kidney cancer include:

  • Blood in the urine
  • Constant pain in the lower back on one side that isn’t caused by an injury
  • Unexplained weight loss
  • Chronic fatigue
  • Loss of appetite
  • A mass or bump in the lower back
  • An unexplained fever that doesn’t go away

If you or your doctor finds these symptoms, your doctor will order further tests like a urine sample or blood test.

Treatment Options for Kidney Cancer

Kidney Cancer Treatment Options - Cyberknife OCAt OC CyberKnife, we use multidisciplinary teams of specialists to treat our patients, providing a unique perspective from many areas of medicine and oncology for every patient. For kidney cancer, your team will likely be led by a urologist, a doctor specializing in the urinary tract, or by a urologic oncologist, a doctor specializing in cancers of the urinary tract. Your team will also include specialists like physician assistants, pharmacists, oncology nurses, dietitians, counselors, social workers, and other healthcare professionals.

Your lead doctor will talk with you about your situation and the treatment options available to you. It’s important to understand that with kidney cancer, every case is different – so while one treatment option may be best for one patient, your doctor may recommend another for you. Ultimately, you should choose the your treatment based on the doctor’s recommendation and your own personal preference. The most common treatments for kidney cancer include:

  • Surgery: In this treatment, a surgeon will remove either the portion of the kidney with the tumor, the entire kidney, and potentially the adrenal gland and surrounding fatty tissues.
  • Immunotherapy: This treatment uses specialized drugs that stimulate the immune system to attack the tumor.
  • Chemotherapy: You’ll receive injections of specialized drugs that attack fast-growing cells in the body, helping to kill the cancer cells.
  • Targeted Therapy: This is similar to chemotherapy, but it uses different drugs that may have fewer side effects.
  • Radiation Therapy: Using a system like CyberKnife, a radiation oncologist will deliver high-dose radiation to the site of the tumor to kill cancer cells.

Every patient’s treatment outlook will be different, and in many cases, the best option is to combine two or more of these methods. This is especially true in patients with metastatic kidney cancer, or cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. In these cases, multiple lines of treatment are often used simultaneously.

Schedule a Consultation with Your Orange County Radiation Oncologist

Getting diagnosed with kidney cancer or any other cancerous condition can be a frightening experience, but no matter what you’re up against, the team at OC CyberKnife is committed to helping you beat it. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you beat cancer or schedule your treatment consultation. Working together, we look forward to helping you overcome your condition and reclaim a healthy, normal life.