Each cancer in a given organ can be quite different. For an uncommon cancer, a large enough population to study is necessary for doctors to make decisions on future cases.

While there are well over a dozen different types of kidney cancer, a large study was launched on papillary renal cell carcinoma, sometimes abbreviated as pRCC, to make sure that data was looked at in a similar context.

Researchers from the University of Padua found that papillary renal cell carcinoma forms about 10 percent of kidney cancers, more commonly in men, with a fairly good prognosis for surgical treatment.

For evaluation by oncologists, pathologists found that the Fuhrman nuclear grade predicted prognosis more accurately than other tests.

"Because papillary renal cell carcinoma (pRCC) only affects ten to 15% of kidney cancer patients, the small number of patients enrolled in individual studies makes it hard to draw meaningful conclusions about how the disease will progress" says lead author Dr Vincenzo Ficarra, associate professor of urology at the University of Padua, Italy.

Patient data was taken from 16 different surgical centers over a 12 year period. Out of 5,463 patients with kidney cancer, 577 were later found to have papillary renal cell carcinoma. Results of the surgery and treatment were followed for an average of 3 years.

The average patient was a 62 year old male, and the cancer was usually discovered by accident.

The tumors were normally about four centimeters in diameter. Most patients were treated by removing kidney, lymph, adrenal glands, and surrounding fat.

In terms of cancer aggression, the five year survival rate was 88 percent, ten year survival rate was 83 percent.

The study was published in the April edition of the British Journal of Urology, but is part of a larger research effort by the LUNA, the clinical research office of the Italian Society of Urology.

No financial disclosures were made by the research team.

Recent figures show that about 55,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with kidney cancer each year, and the figure is rising. There are many different types of kidney cancer, but the most common by far is renal cell carcinoma, a tumor which arises from the proximal tubule in the kidney, part of the body's filtration process.

It occurs more often in men than in women, and usually after age 50. The most significant risk factors are smoking and obesity, and high blood pressure and family history are strong risk factors as well. Patients on dialysis from polycystic kidney disease are have a thirty times greater risk of developing RCC.

Symptoms are not very specific, as most cases are discovered incidentally in patients when they are undergoing imaging for a different cause. If undetected, common symptoms will include blood in the urine, flank pain, and an abdominal mass. Abdominal pain and back pain are also common, along with unintentional weight loss. Less common symptoms include cold intolerance, constipation, pallor, and excessive hair growth in women. Utlimately, diagnosis will be made by ultrasound and CT scan of the kidneys.

Treatment is usually surgical removal of the kidney, and removal of the bladder and surrounding lymph nodes may be needed as well. Chemotherapy and radiation are often ineffective, so newer immunotherapies such as Nexavar, Sutent, Torisel, and Avastin have been used with some success. RCC confined to only the kidney has a 90% five-year survival rate, but as metastasis progresses, the survival rate unfortunately decreases precipitously.

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