Cancer of the kidney affects an estimated 27,000 people in the United States each year. Currently, surgical removal of the cancer is the standard treatment for patients with this type of cancer.

Urologist James Borden suggests "there are a lot of diseases that effect the kidney's that require surgery, but the ones they see the most are kidney cancers."

Dr. Borden says in the past these surgeries were traditionally done by making an 8 to 10 inch incision from the middle of the abdomen to the spine in order to gain access to the kidney. "With advances in medicine we now have the ability to make small openings and do this laproscopically."

The laparoscopic approach requires the surgeon to make two small abdominal incisions to insert the laparoscopic tools and another incision, about 3.5 inches long, for the surgeon's hand to remove the kidney. "So, it's a combination of having your hand inside the patient as well as having instruments to work with. The advantages are that the recovery time is much shorter which means a shorter hospital stay and the faster recovery," says Dr. Borden.

And if kidney cancer is detected and treated early, the chances for a full recovery are good. Dr. Borden says that kidney cancer seldom causes problems in its early stages, so there really are no specific symptoms to look out for. "Most of the time we are diagnosing kidney cancer on an incidental cat scan, you go in complaining of one thing, you get a cat scan or ultrasound or another x-ray and you find something in your kidney, totally unrelated to your original problem."

One symptom you never want to ignore is blood in your urine. That may not be kidney cancer, but it's always a symptom that you want to address with your physician.

Kidney cancer occurs most often in people between the ages of 50 and 70, and affects men almost twice as often as women.