ABSTRACT
Kidney cancer is the fifteenth most common cancer in the world,1 accounting for almost 2% of all cancers.2 More than 189 000 new cases are diagnosed annually worldwide, and kidney cancer causes the deaths of more than 91 000 people each year.1 Kidney cancer includes both renal cell cancer (RCC), which arises from cells of the proximal convoluted renal tubule (i.e. cancer of the renal parenchyma), and cancer of the renal pelvis, which arises from the transitional cell epithelium. In adults, 85-90% of kidney cancer cases are RCC.1 In most populations, renal pelvis cancer (RPC) is much less common than RCC. In this chapter, RCC and RPC in adults are addressed separately.
