I can remember when I heard that a family friend had been diagnosed with kidney cancer. “Kidney cancer — really? I’ve never heard of that!” It seemed so rare to me — after all, we commonly raise funds for breast cancer, are lectured about smoking because of the risk of lung cancer, and are taught to always wear sun protection to prevent skin cancer.
As it turns out, kidney cancer is much more common than I had initially thought; although it is fairly uncommon in those under the age of 45, it is one of the 10 most common cancers in both men and women — in fact, the lifetime risk of developing kidney cancer is one in 63 (or about 1.6 percent).
Kidney cancer is more common in men than women; it is estimated that in the year 2017, 40,610 new cases