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Wilms tumor is the most common type of kidney cancer found in children, most often diagnosed between the ages of one and five. For parents, hearing the word 'cancer' attached to a young child is frightening under any circumstances, but Wilms tumor is also one of the pediatric cancers with the strongest track record of successful treatment, with the large majority of children going on to be cured.
This cancer develops from immature kidney cells that, under normal circumstances, would mature into healthy kidney tissue before birth. In Wilms tumor, some of these cells continue growing abnormally instead, forming a tumor usually within one kidney, though it occasionally develops in both.
