Manifestations of renal cell carcinoma

Patients with renal cell carcinoma often have no specific localizing symptoms or signs, and their presentation will often involve many organ systems. Since 40 per cent of these patients do not have genitourinary symptoms, care must be taken to avoid being misled by normal findings on urinalysis. More than 50 per cent of patients with renal cell carcinoma have vague symptoms suggesting a gastrointestinal origin; thus if primary gastrointestinal studies do not disclose a cause for these symptoms, excretory urography must be included as a screening procedure.