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Once renal cell cancer has been found, more tests will be done to find out if cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body. This is called staging. A doctor needs to know the stage of the disease to plan treatment. In Stage I-Cancer is found only in the kidney. With Stage II cancer has spread to the fat around the kidney, but the cancer has not spread beyond this to the capsule that contains the kidney. In the next stage, Stage III, cancer has spread to the main blood vessel that carries clean blood from the kidney (renal vein), to the blood vessel that carries blood from the lower part of the body to the heart (inferior vena cava), or to lymph nodes around the kidney. (Lymph nodes are small, bean-shaped structures that are found throughout the body; they produce and store infection-fighting cells.) The last stage is Stage IV. This is when the cancer has spread to nearby organs such as the bowel or pancreas or has spread to other places in the body such as the lungs. (http://www.oncologychannel.com/kidneycancer)