Radiation therapy of the tumors of the kidney, urinary bladder, prostate and testicles

Generally, tumours of the kidney, urinary bladder, prostate and testicles, are treated mostly by surgery, and radiotherapy is used as an adjuvant treatment procedure. From the radiotherapeutic view point these urinary tumours are different from head and neck or gynecologic cancer where many cases are treated by radiotherapy alone. The main reason not to be usually treated with radiation alone is that urinary tumours are in general radioresistant, except some tumours such as seminoma or transitional cell carcinoma. However there are a considerable number of cases which response well to radiotherapy, in these case radiotherapy seems to be so effective to cure tumours. On the other hand, radiotherapy to urinary region must be recognized to be useful as an adjuvant method, if the tumours might be radioresistant and not readly response to radiotherapy. (author)