About Benign Kidney Tumors
The kidneys can have a variety of benign growths that may or may not present with symptoms. Symptoms, when they do occur, may be due to the growths crowding other nearby organs or vessels. In some cases, these growths may be of types that occur anywhere in the body, as opposed to being types that occur only on kidneys. Some are more common than others.
Types of benign kidney growths
- Renal adenomas are the most common type of benign kidney tumor. Because they rarely present with symptoms, it is difficult to say how often they occur.
- Oncocytoma is a type of benign tumor that occurs in men more often than in women. These often show up at a young age and are often hereditary.
- Both renal adenomas and oncocytomas are difficult to distinguish from cancerous growths using conventional diagnostic methods, including biopsies.
- Renal hamartoma is a benign tumor that often occurs in conjunction with another condition called tubular sclerosis that causes tumors to occur in organs throughout the body. In either case, renal hamartomas occur mostly in women and are extremely rare.
- Fibromas also occur mostly in women. These occur in fibrous tissues surrounding the kidneys and, like adenomas and hamartomas, are difficult to distinguish from cancer cells.
- Lipomas occur in the fat cells around the kidneys and, while they start out benign, they may become cancerous. Lipomas may also show up with symptoms like pain. Like most types of benign kidney growth, they are also very rare.
Treatment of benign kidney tumors
- Surgical removal is the preferred method both of treatment and diagnosis of renal adenomas and oncocytomas alike.
- In most cases the incidence of renal hamartoma will require no treatment unless the physician suspects that it may be malignant.
- Because fibromas are difficult to distinguish from cancer, a removal of one or both of the kidneys may be necessary to treat it; the procedure to remove them is called a nephrectomy. This is also the preferred treatment for lipomas.