In the title of an award-winning book published in 2010, cancer is characterized as “the emperor of all maladies,” to borrow a surgeon’s epithet from the 1800s. One could appeal to ubiquitous marketing campaigns during October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, for proof that cancer is popularly regarded as the most fearsome of chronic diseases. However, many studies in nephrology literature suggest that survival after kidney failure is worse than survival with several common types of cancer, as well as with other chronic diseases.