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- At Significantly Higher Risk
- • This tumor is twice as frequent in men as in women, occurring mostly between the ages of 30 and 70.
- • Those who smoke tobacco.
- • Patients on long-term dialysis with acquired polycystic kidneys have an increased risk, as do those with the
- inherited disease von Hippel-Lindau syndrome.
- • Other (but weak) risk factors include obesity in women and a high animal-fat diet, both of which suggest a
- hormonal imbalance.
- • A new finding is the frequent abnormality in the chromosome 3 genes, particularly in familial renal cancers.
- Both genes are needed to suppress tumor formation, and absence of one gene permits tumor growth. Such
- findings have led to trials of gene insertion therapy.
-