Radiotherapy For Renal Cell Carcinoma

Radiation is sometimes used to treat kidney cancer if a person is not healthy enough to have surgery or has only one kidney.

Radiotherapy for renal cell carcinoma.

Radiotherapy can shrink a larger cancer. Radiation therapy uses high energy rays or particles to kill cancer cells. These drugs enter your blood and reach nearly all areas of the body which makes this treatment potentially useful for cancer that has spread metastasized to organs beyond the kidney. However in the past decade evidence has grown that a high dose given in one or a few fractions stereotactic body radiotherapy can overcome resistance.

The radiation dose is precise and very concentrated which is the best way to eliminate kidney cancer cells. Most evidence in favour of stereotactic body radiotherapy for renal cell carcinoma comes from single institution reports. These techniques provide excellent local control and palliation of metastatic sites of disease with minimal toxicity. This is because kidney cancer is less sensitive to radiation than some other types of cancer.

You might have radiotherapy to help control the symptoms of advanced cancer such as pain or blood in the urine. Stereotactic radiosurgery and stereotactic body radiation therapy sbrt have led to a resurgence of the use of radiotherapy in the management of advanced renal cell carcinoma rcc. T cells in tumors are expanded in blood shortly after radiation then decrease. Historically renal cell carcinoma has been considered radioresistant.

Radiation therapy rt has traditionally been disregarded in the primary or adjuvant treatment of renal cell carcinoma rcc but recent advances have necessitated a re examination of the role radiation therapy may be able to play. This relieves pressure on nearby organs or nerves that may be causing pain. Kidney cancer that has spread to the brain. When radiation therapy is used to treat kidney cancer it is usually external beam therapy ebrt which.

Traditionally renal cell carcinoma rcc has been considered a radioresistant tumor and therefore radiation therapy rt was mainly confined in treatment of metastasis. Chemotherapy chemo uses anti cancer drugs that are given into a vein iv or taken by mouth as pills. Radiation causes key changes to immune cells in kidney cancer tumors. Sometimes other treatments will be tried first instead.

Radiotherapy is not often used for kidney cancer. It s a less common treatment since kidney cancer typically resists chemotherapy. It can also help with bone pain if the cancer has spread to your bones. New advances in rt techniques including stereotactic irradiation have made encouraging contributions in the oncologic scenario opening up new opportunities in rcc management.