Can Kidney Cancer Spread to the Stomach?

… Continued …

Kidneys and stomach are quite close each other

As mentioned before, advanced kidney cancer tends to spread to the organs close to the affected kidney. Bowel (large intestines and rectum), for example, is one of the common places where it usually spread to. How about stomach?

The kidneys are bean-shaped organs located just in the below and behind your stomach. In other words, the distance between the kidneys and stomach is quite close.

Therefore, problem in the kidney may also affect the stomach. The same goes for kidney cancer. If the cancer has become advanced and spread, it’s quite possible for the cancer cells to metastasize to the stomach.

Cancer cells spread through bloodstream

Kidneys have a number of different functions to help keep your body functioning properly. One of their main, crucial functions is to filter blood. They are responsible on what to keep and what to remove from the circulation (bloodstream).

If this function goes awry, some serious consequences will happen. Without healthy kidney, your body doesn’t have normal, healthy-balanced blood supply. You need at least one healthy-functioning kidney to keep survive!

The filtered blood is going back to the circulation and re-distributed to the rest of the body. Cancer cells that break away from the primary tumor in the kidney can go to this filtered blood and spread to other organs of the body such as stomach.

The chance increases for aggressive kidney cancer

Again, in some cases kidney cancer is aggressive (fast growing). The more aggressive it is – the greater chance to spread elsewhere in the body such as to the stomach.

It’s difficult to predict how the cancer will behave. But in general, it’s dependent on the cancer grade and type.

The higher score of cancer grade points to the more abnormality appearance of the cancer cells if compared to the normal cells (when closely examined under the microscope). And some types of kidney cancer may tend to become a fast growing cancer and spread more easily, as noted before!