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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 These findings are partly explained by increasing incidence of larger, more lethal tumors. "While more and more small, detectable kidney tumors are being treated, the absolute number of patients with larger, lethal masses has not decreased. And it is these larger, lethal masses that seem to mainly affect mortality," study co-author Dr. John M. Hollingsworth said in a statement.
In addition, some of the smaller tumors may not need surgical removal, the researchers speculated.
"We're not saying that surgery for patients with small renal masses is inappropriate," Hollingsworth said. "Our findings, however, show that their increased treatment has not diminished kidney cancer mortality. This calls to question the effectiveness of our current treatment strategy. Perhaps there are some patients with small kidney tumors for whom surgery is not the best option."
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However, one expert thinks the high death rate can be attributed to a lack of chemotherapy drugs to treat patients after they have surgery.
Dr. Herman Kattlove, a medical editor at the American Cancer Society, disagreed that patients with small kidney tumors shouldn't have surgery. "The procedure is safe, and often the kidney can be preserved," he said.
"The problem is that there aren't any good drugs for kidney cancer. It is not a tumor that is very responsive," Kattlove said. "We need to find better drugs to deal with this disease in the postoperative state, before it spreads."
More information
The American Cancer Society can tell you more about kidney cancer (www.cancer.org ).
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