Recommending exercise and sports for children and adolescents with a solitary kidney after a renal tumor: A view on current evidence-based risks and decisions

Whether or not children and adolescents with solitary kidney due to renal tumors can play the same sports as their peers has been a matter of extensive debate. This especially pertains sports bearing a potential risk of genitourinary injuries. Cancer patients are encouraged to live a normal life, yet children and adolescents with cancer have a reduced exercise tolerance matched with a lower energy expenditure compared to their peers. Engagement in sports could be a fundamental facilitator of living well also for individuals with one kidney or with a kidney disease. Exercising is important to counteract the impaired anabolic and activated catabolic pathways, chronic inflammation and oxidative stress resulting from chronic kidney disease.