Kidney cancer can strike at any age, even in the young: an ultrasound, as part of an annual health check-up, can go a long way towards early detection. This was the message of doctors at the Asian Institute of Nephrology (AINU), Chennai, while addressing a press conference on Tuesday, February 3, 2026.
Detailing a recent case at the hospital, Arun Kumar Balakrishnan, managing director and chief urologist at AINU said a 23-year-old woman who had no symptoms apart from mild right flank pain came in for a check-up and was found to have 5.7 cm tumour on her right kidney.
A robotic-assisted partial nephrectomy was performed, with the tumour successfully removed and 80% of the kidney saved. The patient recovered and is back at work now, Dr. Balakrishnan said. He highlighted the role of robotic surgery for the precision it achieves in removing the tumour and repairing the kidney, allowing for preservation of the organ.
Another recent case at the hospital involved a 38-year-old mother of two, whose kidney tumour was found when she had gone to a doctor for low back pain. This tumour, said Mathisekaran Thangarasu, neuro-urology consultant, AINU, was sitting right on top of blood vessels, making it hard to remove. In this case too, robotic surgery helped excise the entire tumour, and doctors managed to preserve kidney function.
The doctors emphasised the fact that a majority of kidney tumours are asymptomatic, most are diagnosed incidentally and that age is not immunity with this cancer. Persistent pain or unusual symptoms should not be ignored, they said. They also stressed that with early detection, kidney cancer had a high cure rate with only a 1% to 3% chance of relapse and no chemotherapy or radiotherapy required if the surgery was successful, making early detection, and the need for regular ultrasounds, crucial.
Published – February 04, 2026 05:30 am IST
