Treating the Chameleon: Radiotherapy in the management of Renal Cell Cancer

PURPOSE: To review the role of radiotherapy (RT) in the treatment of renal cell cancer (RCC) in the curative and palliative setting. CONTENT: Details related to the clinical outcomes of primary, preoperative, postoperative and palliative RT are discussed, along with a presentation of the established role of surgery and systemic therapy. An overview of data derived from mono- and multi-institutional trials is provided. CONCLUSION: Radiotherapy has been shown to provide good symptom palliation and local control in RCC depending on the dose that can be delivered. There is emerging data suggesting that with the use of high-precision RT methods the indication spectrum of RT can be exploited covering different clinical situations particularly for unresectable local recurrences and oligometastatic disease.