Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are not as successful in the case of RCC. RCC is resistant in most cases but there is about a 4–5% success rate, but this is often short lived with more tumours and growths developing later.

Cancers often grow in an unbridled fashion because they are able to evade the immune system. Immunotherapy is a method that activates the person's immune system and uses it to their own advantage. It was developed after observing that in some cases there was spontaneous regression. Immunotherapy capitalises on this phenomenon and aims to build up a person's immune response to cancer cells.

Other targeted therapy medications inhibit growth factors that have been shown to promote the growth and spread of tumours. Most of these medications were approved within the past 10 years. These treatments are:

- Nivolumab

- Axitinib

- Sunitinib

- Cabozantinib

- Everolimus

- Lenvatinib

- Pazopanib

- Bevacizumab

- Sorafenib

- Temsirolimus

- Interleukin-2 (IL-2) has produced "durable remissions" in a small number of patients, but with substantial toxicity.

- Interferon-α

Activity has also been reported for ipilimumab but it is not an approved medication for renal cancer.

More medications are expected to become available in the near future as several clinical trials are currently being conducted for new targeted treatments, including: atezolizumab, varlilumab, durvalumab, avelumab, LAG525, MBG453, TRC105, and savolitinib.

This cancer is typically aggressive, presents at an advanced stage when the cancer has already metastasized, and is resistant to chemotherapy. It therefore poses a significant management challenge. Current treatment options include surgical resection and chemotherapy with a variety of agents, including (but not limited to) ifosfamide, etoposide, carboplatin, and topotecan. A recent study looked at the use of methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin in 3 patients and saw a partial response and longer survival than historical reports. Carboplatin, gemcitibine, and paclitaxel provided a complete response in a patient with advanced disease. The role of radiation is unclear; some tumors have shown a response to radiation. Due to the apparent propensity for the tumor to spread to the central nervous system, it has been suggested that prophylactic craniospinal irradiation should be considered.

Currently, the only clinical/pharmacological treatment available for ADPKD consists in reducing the speed in gain of total kidney volume (TKV) with aquaretics (i.e. tolvaptan), which can alleviate pain while giving the patients a better quality of life for over a mean of 3 years. After this period, patients can restart gaining TKV at pre-treatment rates and may eventually have to go through dialysis and kidney transplant. Paliative treatment modalities involve symptomatic medications (non-opioid and opioid analgesics) for abdominal/retroperitoneal pain. Before the advent of aquaretic medication, the only option for analgesic-resistant pain were simple or complex surgical procedures (i.e. renal cyst aspiration, cyst decortication, renal denervation and nephrectomy), which can result in complications inherent to surgery.

In 2014, Japan was the first country in the world to approve a pharmacological treatment for ADPKD followed by Canada and Europe, which approved the drug tolvaptan for ADPKD patients in the beginning of 2015. Tolvaptan, an aquaretic drug, is a vasopressin receptor 2 (V2) antagonist. Pre-clinical studies had suggested that the molecule cAMP could be involved in the enlargement of ADPKD cysts, and studies on rodents confirmed the role of vasopressin in increasing the levels of cAMP in the kidney, which laid the basis for the conduction of clinical studies. Because data from the Consortium for Radiologic Imaging Studies of Polycystic Kidney Disease (CRISP) led by Mayo Clinic showed that total kidney volume (TKV) predicted the risk of developing renal insufficiency in patients with ADPKD, the TEMPO 3:4 trial, which enrolled patients from 129 sites worldwide from 2007 to 2009, evaluated TKV as a primary end-point to test the efficacy of tolvaptan in ADPKD patients. That study showed a significant decrease in the ratio of TKV increase and deterring of renal function decline in ADPKD patients after treatment with tolvaptan; however, because laboratory test results regarding liver function appeared elevated in a percentage of patients enrolled in that study, the approval of the drug was either delayed by regulatory agencies or, as in case of the US, altogether denied.

Treatment for kidney cancer depends on the type and stage of the disease. Surgery is the most common treatment as kidney cancer does not often respond to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Surgical complexity can be estimated by the RENAL Nephrometry Scoring System. If the cancer has not spread it will usually be removed by surgery. In some cases this involves removing the whole kidney however most tumors are amenable to partial removal to eradicate the tumor and preserve the remaining normal portion of the kidney. Surgery is not always possible – for example the patient may have other medical conditions that prevent it, or the cancer may have spread around the body and doctors may not be able to remove it. There is currently no evidence that body-wide medical therapy after surgery where there is no known residual disease, that is, adjuvant therapy, helps to improve survival in kidney cancer. If the cancer cannot be treated with surgery other techniques such as freezing the tumour or treating it with high temperatures may be used. However these are not yet used as standard treatments for kidney cancer.

Other treatment options include biological therapies such as everolimus, torisel, nexavar, sutent, and axitinib, the use of immunotherapy including interferon and interleukin-2. Immunotherapy is successful in 10 to 15% of people. Sunitinib is the current standard of care in the adjuvant setting along with pazopanib; these treatments are often followed by everolimus, axitinib, and sorafenib. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are also in trials for kidney cancer, and some have gained approval for medical use.

In the second line setting, nivolumab demonstrated an overall survival advantage in advanced clear renal cell carcinoma over everolimus in 2015 and was approved by the FDA. Cabozantinib also demonstrated an overall survival benefit over everolimus and was approved by the FDA as a second-line treatment in 2016. Lenvatinib in combination with everolimus was approved in 2016 for patients who have had exactly one prior line of angiogenic therapy.

In Wilms' tumor, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery are the accepted treatments, depending on the stage of the disease when it is diagnosed.

Renal medullary carcinoma is extremely rare and it is not currently possible to predict those individuals with sickle cell trait who will eventually develop this cancer. It is hoped that early detection could result in better outcomes but screening is not feasible.

Everolimus is FDA approved for the treatment of angiomyolipomas. Treatment should be considered for asymptomatic, growing AML measuring larger than 3 cm in diameter.

Angiomyolipoma do not normally require surgery unless there is life-threatening bleeding. Some centres may perform preventative selective embolisation of the angiomyolipoma if it is more than 4 cm in diameter, due to the risk of haemorrhage.

People with tuberous sclerosis are advised to have yearly renal scans, though it is possible that patients with very stable lesions could be monitored less frequently. The research in this area is lacking. Even if no angiomyolipoma is found, one can develop at any life stage. The angiomyolipoma can grow rapidly.

In tuberous sclerosis, typically many angiomyolipomas affecting each kidney. It is not uncommon for more than one intervention to be required during lifetime. Since kidney function may already be impaired (up to half the kidney may be lost before function loss is detectable), it is vital to preserve as much kidney as possible when removing any lesion. Large angiomyolipomas are treated by embolisation which reduces the risk of haemorrhage and can also shrink the lesion. A side effect of this treatment is postembolisation syndrome: severe pain and fever however this is easily managed and lasts only a few days.

A ruptured aneurysm in an angiomyolipoma leads to blood loss that must be stopped (though embolisation) and compensated for (through intravenous fluid replacement). Therefore, removal of the affected kidney (nephrectomy) is strongly discouraged though may occur if the emergency department is not knowledgeable about tuberous sclerosis.

Embolisation involves inserting a catheter along the blood vessels to the tumour. The blood vessels are then blocked, typically by injecting ethanol or inert particles. The procedure can be very painful, so analgesics are used. The destroyed kidney tissue often causes post-embolisation syndrome, which manifests as nausea, vomiting, fever and abdominal pain, and lasts a few days. Embolisation (in general) has an 8% rate of morbidity and a 2.5% rate of mortality, so is not considered lightly.

Patients with kidney loss should be monitored for hypertension (and treated for it if discovered) and avoid nephrotoxic drugs such as certain pain relievers and IV contrast agents. Such patients who are unable to communicate effectively (due to age or intellectual disability) are at risk of dehydration. Where multiple or large angiomyolipomas have caused chronic kidney disease, dialysis is required.

Robotic assisted partial nephrectomy has been proposed as a surgical treatment of a ruptured angiomyolipoma combining the advantages both of a kidney preservation procedure and the benefits of a minimal invasive procedure without compromising the safety of the patient.

Renal oncocytoma is considered benign, cured by nephrectomy. There are some familial cases in which these tumors are multicentric rather than solitary. However, they may be resected to exclude a malignant tumor, e.g. renal cell carcinoma.

The different manifestations of Birt–Hogg–Dubé syndrome are controlled in different ways. The fibrofolliculomas can be removed surgically, through curettage, shave excision, skin resurfacing, or laser ablation; however, this is not a permanent solution as the tumors often recur. The renal and pulmonary symptoms are managed preventatively: CT scans, ultrasounds, or MRIs of the kidneys are recommended regularly, and family members are advised not to smoke. MRIs are the preferred method for surveillance of the kidneys in people with BHD because they do not carry the same risk of radiation complications as CT scans and are more sensitive than ultrasounds. Smokers with Birt–Hogg–Dubé have more severe pulmonary symptoms than non-smokers. Though nephrectomy is sometimes indicated, kidney tumors in cases of Birt–Hogg–Dubé are often removed without taking the whole kidney, in a procedure called partial nephrectomy. Knockout mouse studies have shown that administration of rapamycin may mitigate the effects of FLCN mutations on kidneys and improve renal cancer prognoses because of folliculin's interaction with the mTOR pathway.

First-line chemotherapy regimens for advanced or metastatic TCC consists of gemcitabine and cisplatin) (GC) or a combination of methotrexate, vinblastine, adriamycin, and cisplatin (MVAC).

Taxanes or vinflunine have been used as second-line therapy (after progression on a platinum containing chemotherapy).

Immunotherapy such as pembrolizumab is often used as second-line therapy for metastatic urothelial carcinoma that has progressed despite treatment with GC or MVAC.

In May 2016 FDA granted accelerated approval to atezolizumab for locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma treatment after failure of cisplatin-based chemotherapy. The confirmatory trial (to convert the accelerated approval into a full approval) failed to achieve its primary endpoint of overall survival.

Transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) can be very difficult to treat. Treatment for localized stage TCC is surgical resection of the tumor, but recurrence is common. Some patients are given mitomycin into the bladder either as a one-off dose in the immediate post-operative period (within 24 hrs) or a few weeks after the surgery as a six dose regimen.

Localized/early TCC can also be treated with infusions of BCG into the bladder. These are given weekly for either 6 weeks (induction course) or 3 weeks (maintenance/booster dose). Side effects include a small chance of developing systemic tuberculosis or the patient becoming sensitized to the BCG causing severe intolerance and a possible reduction in bladder volume due to scarring.

In patients with evidence of early muscular invasion, radical curative surgery in the form of a cysto-prostatectomy usually with lymph node sampling can also be performed. In such patients, a bowel loop is often used to create either a "neo-bladder" or an "ileal conduit" which act as a place for the storage of urine before it is evacuated from the body either via the urethra or a urostomy respectively.

As metanephric adenomas are considered benign, they can be left in place, i.e. no treatment is needed.

Acquired cystic kidney disease-associated renal cell carcinoma is rare subtype of renal cell carcinoma.

Treatment may include the following:

- Surgery with or without radiation

- Radiotherapy

Fast neutron therapy has been used successfully to treat salivary gland tumors, and has shown to be significantly more effective than photons in studies treating unresectable salivary gland tumors.

- Chemotherapy

a) Surgical resection is mainstay of treatment, whenever possible. If tumor is completely removed, post-operative radiation therapy is typically not needed since acinic cell is considered a low-grade histology. Post-operative radiation therapy for acinic cell carcinoma is used if: 1) margins are positive, 2) incomplete resection, 3) tumor invades beyond gland, 4) positive lymph nodes.

b) Neutron beam radiation

c) Conventional radiation

d) Chemotherapy

This type of carcinoma is commonly managed by local resection, cryotherapy, topical chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Multimodal therapy has been shown to improve both visual prognosis and survival.

Mohs micrographic surgery has become the treatment of choice for this form of cancer. When used as the primary treatment modality for sebaceous carcinoma of the eyelid, Mohs surgery is associated with significantly lower local and distant recurrence rates.

There is no way to reverse VHL mutations, but early recognition and treatment of specific manifestations of VHL can substantially decrease complications and improve quality of life. For this reason, individuals with VHL disease are usually screened routinely for retinal angiomas, CNS hemangioblastomas, clear-cell renal carcinomas and pheochromocytomas. CNS hemangioblastomas are usually surgically removed if they are symptomatic. Photocoagulation and cryotherapy are usually used for the treatment of symptomatic retinal angiomas, although anti-angiogenic treatments may also be an option. Renal tumours may be removed by a partial nephrectomy or other techniques such as radiofrequency ablation.

The only curative treatment is complete surgical excision of the tumor, which can be performed even in the case of invasion into large blood vessels, such as the renal vein or inferior vena cava. The 5-year survival rate after successful surgery is 50–60%, but unfortunately, a large percentage of patients are not surgical candidates. Radiation therapy and radiofrequency ablation may be used for palliation in patients who are not surgical candidates.

Chemotherapy regimens typically include the drug mitotane, an inhibitor of steroid synthesis which is toxic to cells of the adrenal cortex, as well as standard cytotoxic drugs. A retrospective analysis showed a survival benefit for mitotane in addition to surgery when compared to surgery alone.

The two most common regimens are cisplatin, doxorubicin, etoposide + mitotane and streptozotocin + mitotane. It is unknown which regimen is better. Researchers at Uppsala University Hospital initiated a collaboration between adrenocortical cancer specialists in Europe, USA and Australia, to conduct the first ever randomized controlled trial in adrenocortical cancer (FIRM-ACT study), comparing these two regimens.

Uterine fibroids can be treated with the same methods like sporadic uterine fibroids including antihormonal treatment, surgery or embolisation. Substantially elevated risk of progression to or independent development of uterine leiomyosarcoma has been reported which may influence treatment methods.

The predisposition to renal cell cancer calls for screening and, if necessary, urological management.

The skin lesions may be difficult to treat as they tend to recur after excision or destructive treatment. Drugs which affect smooth muscle contraction, such as doxazosin, nitroglycerine, nifedipine and phenoxybenzamine, may provide pain relief.

Topical lidocaine patches have been reported to decrease in severity and frequency of pain cutaneous leiomyomas.

Tubulocystic renal cell carcinoma is rare subtype of renal cell carcinoma.

Based on a survey of >800, surgical removal of the entire involved kidney plus the peri-renal fat appeared curative for the majority of all types of mesoblastic nephroma; the patient overall survival rate was 94%. Of the 4% of non-survivors, half were due to surgical or chemotherapeutic treatments. Another 4% of these patients suffered relapses, primarily in the local area of surgery rare cases of relapse due to lung or bone metastasis.. About 60% of these recurrent cases had a complete remission following further treatment. Recurrent disease was treated with a second surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy that often vincristine and actinomycin treatment. Removal of the entire afflicted kidney plus the peri-renal fat appears critical to avoiding local recurrences. In general, patients who were older than 3 months of age at diagnosis or had the cellular form of the disease, stage III disease, or involvement of renal lymph nodes had a higher recurrence rate. Among patients with these risk factors, only those with lymph node involvement are recommended for further therapy.

It has been suggested that mesoblastic nephroma patients with lymph node involvement or recurrent disease might benefit by adding the ALK inhibitor, crizotinib, or a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, either larotrectinib or entrectinib, to surgical, radiation, and/or chemotherapy treatment regimens. These drugs inhibit NTRK3's tyrosine kinase activity. Crizotinib has proven useful in treating certain cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia that are associated with the "ETV6-NTRK3" fusion gene while larotrectinib and entrectinib have been useful in treating various cancers (e.g. a metastatic sarcoma, papillary thyroid cancer, non-small-cell lung carcinoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor, mammary analog secretory carcinoma, and colorectal cancer) that are driven by mutated, overly active tyrosine kinases. Relevant to this issue, a 16-month-old girl with infantile fibrosarcoma harboring the "ETV6–NTRK3" fusion gene was successfully trated with larotrectinib. The success of these drugs, howwever, will likely depend on the relative malignancy-promoting roles of ETV6-NTRK3 protein's tyrosine kinase activity, the lose of ETV6-related transcription activity accompanying formation of ETV6-NTRK3 protein, and the various trisomy chromosomes that populate mesoblastic nephroma.

The majority of kidney cancers reported in children are Wilms' tumors. These tumors can begin to grow when a fetus is still developing in the uterus, and may not cause problems until the child is a few years old. Wilms' tumor is most common in children under the age of 5, but can rarely be diagnosed in older children or in adults. It is still not clear what causes most Wilms' tumors. The most common symptoms are swelling of the abdomen and blood in the urine.

A renal oncocytoma is a tumour of the kidney made up of oncocytes, a special kind of cell.

A non-minimally invasive Hürthle cell carcinoma is typically treated by a total thyroidectomy followed by radioactive iodine therapy. A Hürthle cell adenoma or a minimally invasive tumor can be treated by a thyroid lobectomy, although some surgeons will perform a total thyroidectomy to prevent the tumor from reappearing and metastasizing.

A modified radical neck dissection may be performed for clinically positive lymph nodes.