Epidemiology

• 10,144 people in the UK were diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2011
  
  
• There were 4,189 deaths from kidney cancer in the UK in 2011. 53.9% of adult kidney cancer patients (53.3% of men and 54.8% of women) in England survived their cancer for five years or more in 2005-2009
  
  
• Kidney cancer is the 8th most common cancer in the UK (2011), accounting for around 3% of all new cases.
  • in males, it is the 7th most common cancer (4% of the male total), whilst it is 10th in females (2%)
    
    
• kidney cancer incidence is strongly related to age, with the highest incidence rates being in older men and women. In the UK between 2009 and 2011, an average of 35% of cases were diagnosed in men and women aged 75 and over, and three quarters (75%) were diagnosed in those aged 60 and over
  • age-specific incidence rates rise sharply from around age 45-49, peaking in the 80-84 age group. Incidence rates are higher for males than for females at age 35 and above (the gap is not significant in younger age groups), and this gap is widest at 85+, when the male:female incidence ratio of age-specific rates (to account for the different proportions of males to females in each age group) is around 21:10
    
    
• over the last decade (between 2000-2002 and 2009-2011), the European AS incidence rates have increased by 27% and 38% in males and females, respectively
  
  
• the commonest presenting symptom is macroscopic haematuria
  
  
• other presenting features of kidney cancer include microscopic haematuria, loin pain, a renal mass, weight loss, pyrexia and anaemia

In 2010, in the UK, the lifetime risk of developing kidney cancer is 1 in 56 for men and 1 in 90 for women.

Reference:

• Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer (April 2000). NHS Executive.
• Cancer Research UK. Kidney Cancer Statistics (accessed 29/6/14)