Signs & Symptoms of Wilms' Disease

Wilms' disease is a type of tumor that develops anywhere within one or both of your kidneys and is usually found in children. In fact, Wilms' disease is the most common type of kidney cancer that effects children, according to the American Cancer Society.

Types of Symptoms

• Symptoms of Wilms' disease include swelling of your child's abdomen, a mass that you can feel in your child's abdomen, fever, bloody urine, reduced appetite, constipation, stomach pain and nausea.

Time Frame

• The symptoms of Wilms' disease are most common in children around the age of 3 and very rarely begin in children older than 8-years-old, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Features

• The symptoms of Wilms' disease develop gradually, and in most cases, are not noticeable until the tumor has become quite large, explains the American Cancer Society.

Signs

• High blood pressure is a sign of Wilms' disease that presents during a physical examination. As signs of Wilms' disease are detectable by taking pictures of the kindeys, an ultrasound is typically the first diagnostic tool used for diagnosing the cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Considerations

• The symptoms of Wilms' disease could also be caused by a number of different conditions that affect children, cautions the Mayo Clinic. Only an examination and diagnostic screening by a doctor can determine the exact cause of your child's symptoms.