Discussing Radiation as a Treatment Option for Kidney Cancer

Key Takeaways

Radiation therapy is a non-invasive local treatment for renal cell carcinoma, offering symptom management and disease control.
It requires no anesthesia or sedation and can be completed relatively quickly, typically within one to two weeks.
Unlike surgery, radiation does not provide tissue samples, and its effects may not be as immediate in symptom relief.
Care team discussions should balance radiation's advantages and disadvantages with patient needs and other local therapy options.

An expert explained the advantages and disadvantages of radiation as a treatment for patients with renal cell carcinoma, a type of kidney cancer.

Discussions with the care team around radiation as a treatment option for patients with renal cell carcinoma, a type of kidney cancer, should focus on its advantages and disadvantages, in addition to how these can best meet patient needs, an expert said.

Renal cell carcinoma, according to the National Cancer Institute, is the most common type of kidney cancer in adults. The disease starts in the lining of the small tubes in the kidney that return filtered substances back to the blood that the body needs.

Glossary

Local therapy: treatment is directed to a limited area or specific organ within the body.

Interventional radiology: a minimally invasive procedure using imaging to guide where treatment should be targeted to destroy cancer cells.

Ablation: destruction or removal of tissue or its function that can be performed with heat or other methods.

Radiation for renal cell carcinoma can be used to manage symptoms and control disease in a minimally invasive manner.

CURE ®spoke with Dr. Chad Tang, associate professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, to learn more about radiation therapy as a treatment option for patients with renal cell carcinoma.

Transcript:

So I think — radiation is a local therapy. It takes care of an anatomical site in terms of controlling it or removing the disease. I think the other local therapy options out there are surgery and IR-based interventions, interventional radiology-based interventions, such as ablation through heat or through cold.

The advantage of radiation is that it's non-invasive. It requires no anesthesia or even sedation for most patients to treat. And it can be relatively quick, although it might take a week or two for the radiation to be completed.

One disadvantage is that you're not going to give tissue-like surgery, and maybe the effects of radiation may not be as immediate in terms of relieving symptoms as physically removing the tumor.

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