New National Guideline Aims to Improve Kidney Cancer Care Across UK

Professor Grant Stewart led the development of the first national guideline on diagnosing and managing kidney cancer.

Mar. 20, 2026 at 12:26am

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The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published a new guideline on kidney cancer care, led by Professor Grant Stewart from the University of Cambridge. The guideline promotes a gold standard approach to diagnosing and managing kidney cancer, including recommendations to offer more biopsies to confirm diagnoses and provide patients access to specialized kidney cancer nurses.

Why it matters

The new guideline aims to improve kidney cancer care across the National Health Service by helping healthcare professionals offer patients the right treatments and support, while considering individual preferences. It could lead to more biopsies being performed to confirm diagnoses and avoid unnecessary surgeries, as well as ensure all kidney cancer patients have access to specialized nursing support.

The details

The guideline covers all stages of diagnosing and managing patients with renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer. Key recommendations include offering biopsies to more people with suspected kidney cancer, which could double the number of biopsies performed, and ensuring patients have access to a clinical nurse specialist with training and experience in kidney cancer care.

  • The new guideline was published on March 20, 2026 by NICE.

The players

Professor Grant Stewart

The clinical lead for developing the new kidney cancer guideline, co-director of the Urological Malignancies Virtual Institute at the University of Cambridge, and Director of Studies in Clinical Medicine at Selwyn College.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

The organization that published the new national guideline on improving the diagnosis and management of kidney cancer.

Addenbrooke's Hospital

The hospital where Professor Stewart is a Consultant Urological Surgeon and has introduced a new one-stop biopsy clinic for kidney cancer patients.

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What they’re saying

“By offering more patients with a kidney lump a biopsy, clinicians can tell patients if the lesion is cancer or benign and if they need to consider a treatment like surgery, or if they can avoid these treatments which do have some risks associated with them.”

— Professor Grant Stewart, Consultant Urological Surgeon

“Access to a clinical nurse specialist, with training and experience in kidney cancer care, will ensure that patients have a single point of contact for all the questions at any time that arise during their care journey.”

— Professor Grant Stewart, Consultant Urological Surgeon

What’s next

The guideline recommendations will now be implemented across the National Health Service, which may require hospitals to adapt their clinical pathways to offer more biopsies and recruit additional specialized kidney cancer nurses.

The takeaway

This new national guideline on kidney cancer care has the potential to significantly improve diagnosis, treatment, and support for kidney cancer patients across the UK by promoting a standardized, evidence-based approach and ensuring access to specialized nursing care.