ABSTRACT
Malignant renal tumours account for about 3 per cent of all cancers worldwide. In the United Kingdom, over 6000 new cases of kidney cancer are diagnosed each year with a crude incidence rate of about 9 per 100 000, a figure which has been steadily increasing over the last three decades1
(Fig. 31.1). There has been a corresponding increase in 5-year, age-standardized and relative survival from a figure of 30 per cent in the 1970s to a current level of 50 per cent (Fig. 31.2). Much of this apparent increase in incidence
and survival is likely to be due to the widespread use of ultrasound and cross-sectional imaging resulting in more cases of kidney cancer being detected at an earlier and often asymptomatic stage. Kidney cancer affects men more commonly than women (in a ratio of approximately 3:2) and is predominantly a disease of the elderly. Age-specific incidence rates increase consistently with age with the absolute numbers of cases demonstrating a plateau during the seventh decade (Fig. 31.3).
