Along with the effectiveness of a cancer medication, physicians and patients want to know about its side effects. What’s the quality of a patient’s life while taking the medicine? Two kidney cancer medications are effective at treating cancer, but have markedly different side effect profiles.

Cancer research usually begins by performing tests on cells. The next step involves animals, and finally humans. A recent controversy involving one medicine’s effect in animals has been refuted in human studies.

At an international oncology meeting, new data has been presented on drugs that treat kidney cancer. The results have been released at the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna.

Kidney cancer doesn’t usually have any warning signs until it has become pretty serious. In fact, about a third of patients are diagnosed with an advanced stage of the disease. A medication has been approved in Europe to treat kidney cancer that has spread.