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Causes
By Mayo Clinic staff
Your kidneys are part of the urinary system, which removes waste and excess fluid and electrolytes from your blood, controls the production of red blood cells, and regulates your blood pressure. Inside each kidney are more than a million small filtering units called nephrons. As blood circulates through your kidneys, the nephrons filter out waste products as well as unneeded minerals and water. This liquid waste — urine — flows through two narrow tubes (ureters) into your bladder, where it's stored until it's eliminated from your body through another tube, the urethra.
Just what causes kidney cells to become cancerous isn't clear. But researchers have identified certain factors that appear to increase the risk of kidney cancer.
Types of kidney cancer
The most common types of kidney cancer include:
- Renal cell carcinoma. This type of kidney cancer usually begins in the cells that line the small tubes of each nephron. In most cases, renal cell tumors grow as a single mass, but you may have more than one tumor in a kidney or develop tumors in both kidneys.
- Transitional cell carcinoma. This type of kidney cancer develops in the tissue that forms the tubes that connect the kidneys to the bladder. Transitional cell carcinomas can also begin in the ureters themselves or in the bladder.
- Wilms' tumor. Wilms' tumor is a type of kidney cancer that occurs in young children.
