Radiotherapy is rarely used in the treatment of patients with kidney cancer. Unless there are metastases to bone, brain, or spinal cord, in which case, radiotherapy may relieve symptoms due to local compression of normal tissue by the tumor. Adjuvant radiotherapy may relieve local symptoms of acute pain, but does not significantly help the patient’s prognosis.
Kidney cancer cells are inherently resistant to radiotherapy as well as chemotherapy, so adjuvant radiotherapy is largely not considered for limited kidney cancer. Currently, radiotherapy is used mainly in the following situations:
- Postoperative radiotherapy: For patients with local regional invasion (including renal tegument, perinephric fat, renal pelvis, renal veins, inferior vena cava, regional lymph nodes, etc.) or intraoperative tumor rupture, postoperative radiotherapy to the tumor bed can be given to reduce the local recurrence rate and distant metastasis rate.
- Palliative radiotherapy: The effect of palliative radiotherapy for metastases and primary foci in advanced patients is limited. However, for brain metastases, radiotherapy is more effective than surgery.
- Treatment of metastatic bone pain: the use of low-dose local irradiation is more effective. Isotope internal radiation therapy is effective in the control of systemic skeletal symptoms and can lead to relief of bone pain in most patients.
- Management of tumor emergencies: localized radiotherapy can effectively relieve spinal cord compression, obstructive pneumonia, and superior vena cava compression syndrome caused by metastases.