By Kisean Joseph
A leading urologist is warning that kidney cancer is claiming lives in Antigua and Barbuda, partly because residents are not getting checked until it is too late — and he is urging the public to make wellness checks a priority before symptoms ever appear.
Dr Adrian Rhudd, a consultant urologist at the Lester Bird Medical Centre, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, and member of the National Cancer Registry, made the call during an appearance on Observer AM, yesterday, as the island marks National Kidney Month.
The timing of his appeal is significant. Separate disclosures made during the same month’s coverage paint a troubling picture of the island’s standing. Dr Ian Thomas, a consultant internist and nephrologist at the Sir Lester Bird Medical Centre, recently revealed that the number of patients living with kidney failure on dialysis in Antigua has increased nearly fourfold, a figure he described as a quiet but escalating public health crisis.
At the heart of Dr Rhudd’s message is a sobering reality — kidney cancer is, for much of its development, completely silent.
“Everything is silent when it’s early,” Dr Rhudd told listeners. “While they’re growing, for most of the time you feel nothing until it is pretty advanced.”
He explained that kidney cancers were historically only discovered when patients presented with a visible mass in the abdomen or blood in the urine — signs that typically indicate the disease is already well progressed. Increasingly, however, cancers are being caught earlier and, almost by accident, picked up during scans ordered for entirely unrelated conditions. Dr Rhudd described that shift as one of the few encouraging developments in how the disease is being managed locally.
The urologist was careful to draw a clear distinction between kidney disease and kidney cancer — two conditions that are frequently confused. Kidney disease, he explained, is a broad term covering any dysfunction of the kidneys, most commonly kidney failure brought on by conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity. Kidney cancer, by contrast, involves an abnormal, unregulated growth that, if left unchecked, spreads beyond the kidney and into surrounding tissue.
“A cancer occurs when this balance gets thrown off,” Dr Rhudd said, describing the cellular process behind tumor development. “Some cells grow a lot faster than they should, and some cells do not die when they should. This dysregulation causes a cancer — and it grows and grows until it outgrows its space.”
He noted that kidney cancer is highly curable when surgery is performed early, making early detection not just beneficial but potentially lifesaving.
Dr Rhudd also addressed the lifestyle factors placing many Caribbean residents at elevated risk, identifying hypertension, diabetes, obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, and high cholesterol as key contributors — conditions he described as widespread across the region and interconnected across multiple medical specialties. Those same conditions, notably, are the very drivers behind the rising number of dialysis patients highlighted by Dr Thomas.
“The battle against these diseases starts in your home,” Dr Rhudd said, “eating clean, less processed foods, avoiding added sugars, and exercising. I cannot overstate how important activity and exercise are.”
On the matter of warning signs, Dr Rhudd singled out blood in the urine as one of the most important symptoms to act on immediately, stressing that it can originate anywhere along the urinary tract and should never be dismissed or monitored from home.
He also cautioned against the routine use of common painkillers — specifically the group of drugs known as NSAIDs, which includes ibuprofen, Cataflam, and Voltaren — warning that in high doses over prolonged periods, these medications can become toxic to the kidneys.
“Pain is your body telling you something is wrong,” he said. “Instead of just masking it by taking the tablet, go and get it checked out.”
When asked what single piece of advice he would offer listeners, Dr Rhudd’s answer was direct: drink water and move your body.
“The single most important thing that you can put in your body is water,” he said. “Eat clean and exercise. Exercise, exercise, activity.”
He encouraged all residents to schedule a general wellness check — not merely a kidney-specific test — explaining that the kidneys are just one component of an overall picture of health that clinicians assess together.