What is sarcomatoid renal cancer?
This page tells you about sartcomatoid renal cancer. There is information about
Sarcomatoid renal cell cancer is a rare type of kidney (renal) cancer. Fewer than 1 in 20 (5%) kidney cancers are sarcomatoid renal cancers.
Most kidney cancers start in cells called clear cells, but they can start in other cells too. It sems that any type of renal cell cancer can become sarcomatoid. This means that the cells of the cancer look like the cells of a sarcoma. So they are called ‘sarcomatoid’.
Sarcomas are cancers of the supportive tissue in our bodies. Supportive tissue includes
- Bones
- Muscle
- Fat
- Fibrous tissue
- Nerves
- Blood vessels
Sarcomatoid tumours are generally made up of other cell types too. These are usually clear cells and cells called chromophobe cells. Some doctors think that some kidney cancers turn into sarcomatoid tumours as the disease progresses.
Sarcomatoid renal tumours tend to grow more quickly than other types of kidney cancers and are more likely to spread to other parts of the body. This can make them more difficult to treat.
Symptoms of sarcomatoid kidney cancer are the same as the symptoms of kidney cancer. The tests you will have will be the same too. You can find out more in the kidney cancer section of CancerHelp UK.
If your cancer only affects your kidney then your main treatment will be surgery. For the more common types of kidney cancer this is often followed by a biological therapy such as
But sarcomatoid renal cancers don’t respond well to biological therapies. Unlike most other types of kidney cancer, they respond better to chemotherapy. It seems that the more the cancer looks like a sarcoma (the more sarcoma cells there are), the better chemotherapy is likely to work.
So doctors tend to use similar chemotherapy drugs to those they use to treat other types of sarcoma. This is often a combination of different chemotherapy drugs, including the drug doxorubicin (Adriamycin). Other drugs you might have are ifosfamide, dacarbazine and more recently gemcitabine.
Doctors are still trying to find out more about the best way to use chemotherapy drugs for sarcomatoid renal cell cancer, and which patients are likely to benefit most from chemotherapy treatment.
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