After Kidney Cancer Treatment
For some people with kidney cancer, treatment can remove or destroy the cancer. Completing treatment can be both stressful and exciting. Some people might be relieved to finish treatment but find it hard not to worry about cancer coming back.
For other people, kidney cancer might not go away completely. Some people may get regular treatment to try to keep the cancer in check. Learning to live with cancer that doesn’t go away can be difficult, but many people find ways to manage their health and maintain a good quality of life.
No matter what your situation is, there are steps you can take to live well, both physically and emotionally.
This information focuses on renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer in adults. For more about Wilms tumor, a kidney cancer of childhood, see After Wilms Tumor Treatment.
Follow-up care after kidney cancer
During and after finishing treatment for kidney cancer, it’s very important to go to all of your follow-up appointments.
During these visits, your care team will watch for signs that the cancer has come back. They will also watch for any side effects of treatment. Let them know about any new symptoms or problems.
What to expect during follow-up visits
Follow-up visits often include careful physical exams and blood, urine, or imaging tests. How often you follow up with your care team will depend on your cancer, its response to treatment, and other factors.
Many doctors recommend follow-up visits with imaging and lab tests more often early after treatment. Over time, your care team might space out follow-up visits to once a year.
Your follow-up appointments are a good time to ask questions about side effects from treatment or any symptoms you have. Talk to your cancer care team about any changes, problems, or concerns.
Your survivorship care plan
Talk with your doctor about developing a survivorship care plan for you. This plan can guide your next steps after treatment, including follow-up appointments and ways to stay healthy.
Your plan might include:
- A summary of your diagnosis, tests, and treatments
- A suggested schedule for follow-up exams and tests
- A timeline for other tests, such as screening for other cancers or monitoring for long-term health effects
- A list of possible late- or long-term side effects from your treatment, including what to watch for and when to contact your healthcare team
- Diet and physical activity suggestions
- Reminders to see your primary care provider (PCP) for routine healthcare and cancer screening
Questions to ask your care team
- Do I need a special diet after treatment?
- Are there any limits on what I can do?
- What kind of symptoms should I watch for?
- What kind of exercise should I do now?
- What type of follow-up will I need after treatment?
- How often will I need exams, imaging tests, or blood tests?
- How will we know if the cancer comes back? What should I watch for?
- What will my options be if the cancer comes back?
Staying prepared and organized
Even after treatment, it’s very important to stay organized and on top of your health. Keeping your records and health insurance coverage in order makes it easier to manage your follow-up care, future checkups, and any new concerns that may come up.
Keep your health insurance
It’s very important to keep health insurance as a kidney cancer survivor. Insurance can help cover the cost of follow-up visits, tests, and any care you may need in the future. No one wants to think about their cancer coming back, but it’s best to be prepared.
Save your medical records
At some point after your treatment, you might see a new healthcare team who doesn’t know your cancer history. Keep copies of your medical records so you can easily share the details of your diagnosis and treatment when needed.
Late and long-term effects of kidney cancer treatment
People who are treated for kidney cancer can be at risk for several health problems after treatment.
It’s important to ask your cancer care team what health problems you might have, so you know what to watch for. The earlier these problems are recognized, the more likely they can be treated. Your risk will depend on a few factors, including the types and doses of treatment you received.
Adopting healthy behaviors such as eating well, getting regular physical activity, staying at a healthy weight, and not smoking might help prevent long-term health problems.
If all or part of a kidney was removed as part of your treatment, you have a higher risk of developing kidney problems later in life. For many people, the body adapts. But for some people, kidney function can worsen over time. This sometimes even develops into kidney failure.
Certain chemo and immunotherapy medicines or radiation treatment can also cause damage to the kidneys.
Protecting your kidneys
Staying well hydrated is important for kidney health. In some cases, your care team may recommend avoiding or limiting the use of certain medications if you only have one kidney. Talk to your care team about your situation and what you can do to protect your kidneys.
Immunotherapy medicines trigger an immune response to cancer cells. But these medicines can also trigger immune responses to other parts of the body. People treated with these medicines might develop problems with hormone-making organs like the adrenal gland, thyroid, or pituitary gland. Many of these problems can be treated with medicines.
Certain kinase inhibitors (targeted therapy drugs) can also affect the thyroid gland. Most often, these drugs can cause low thyroid hormone. If this happens, a medicine called levothyroxine can be used to replace it.
People treated with immunotherapy are more likely to develop muscle tenderness, arthritis, and sometimes swelling of the joints. These symptoms sometimes go away after treatment. But for some people, they don’t go away. For others, these symptoms might come and go over time.
If you have muscle and joint pain, you might be referred to a rheumatologist. This is an expert in problems of the immune system, bones, joints, and muscles.
People who’ve had cancer can be affected by a number of health problems, but often a major concern is facing cancer again.
Cancer that comes back after treatment is called a recurrence. But some cancer survivors may develop a new, unrelated cancer later. This is called a second cancer.
Unfortunately, being treated for kidney cancer does not mean you can’t get another cancer. People who’ve had kidney cancer can still get the same types of cancers that other people get.
In fact, kidney cancer survivors might be at a higher risk of certain types of cancer, including:
- Bladder cancer
- Cancer of the ureter (the tube that connects the kidney to the bladder)
- Prostate cancer
- Thyroid cancer
- Melanoma of the skin
- A second kidney cancer
A second kidney cancer is different from the first cancer coming back. The risk of a second kidney cancer is highest in people who were diagnosed before age 50.
Radiation therapy and certain chemo medicines can increase the risk of developing a second cancer.
People treated with platinum chemotherapy, such as cisplatin, are at increased risk of developing hearing problems. In most cases, chemo is not needed to treat kidney cancer.
If you receive this medicine, regular hearing tests might be recommended to watch for problems during and after treatment.
People treated with platinum chemotherapy, such as cisplatin, and/or immunotherapy are at increased risk of developing neuropathy. Symptoms of neuropathy include numbness, pain, or tingling in the hands and feet.
These symptoms might get better when treatment stops, but sometimes they are permanent.
Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (targeted therapy) can affect fertility. This might be reversible when treatment stops.
Certain chemo medicines such as platinum chemo (cisplatin and carboplatin) might affect long-term fertility. But these medicines are not often used in the treatment of kidney cancer.
Immunotherapy medicines can cause inflammation almost anywhere in the body, including the heart. When this happens, it is called myocarditis. Damage to the heart muscle may affect heart function later on.
Some targeted therapies might also cause heart problems. This can happen when other side effects of these medicines, such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, or high cholesterol levels, damage your heart and blood vessels over time.
Anthracycline chemo (doxorubicin) can damage the heart muscle. This type of chemo may be used to treat kidney cancer, although rarely.
If you had heart problems during treatment or received medicine that can cause heart problems, your care team might watch your heart function with echocardiograms.
If kidney cancer comes back
If your kidney cancer does return, your treatment options will depend on the location of the cancer, the treatments you had before, and your overall health. For more on how recurrent cancer is treated, see Treatment Options for Kidney Cancer, by Type and Stage.
For general information on recurrence, see Understanding Recurrence.
Social and emotional health after cancer
Some amount of feeling depressed, anxious, or worried is common when cancer is a part of your life.
Some feelings might last a long time and can include:
- Dealing with any physical changes that happen because of treatment.
- Worrying about cancer returning or new health problems developing.
- Being treated differently or discriminated against by friends, partners, coworkers, employers, and others.
You might also feel:
- Resentful for having had cancer
- Resentful for going through treatment when others didn’t have to
- Guilty for surviving cancer when other friends with cancer did not
If your feelings are getting in the way of your daily life, consider reaching out for support. The American Cancer Society is here to help. The National Cancer Information Center is available 24/7 at 1-800-227-2345 to discuss support resources in your community.
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- References
Developed by the American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team with medical review and contribution by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
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Last Revised: November 2, 2026
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