Background: After renal transplantation, patients have a higher incidence of developing cancer necessitating pelvic radiotherapy, but there is a lack of data for such therapy in this patient group.
Patients and methods: Nine patients with pelvic renal transplants were treated with pelvic radiotherapy between 04/2002 and 06/2011. Treatment was carried out for prostate (n=4), rectal (n=2), and anal cancer (n=1), osseous metastasis (n=1), and Hodgkin's disease (n=1). The mean age of the transplants was 12.6 years.
Results: The mean total dose to the target volume was 60.2 Gy, the mean maximum dose to the transplant was 10.0 Gy, with a mean dose of 2.1 Gy. The mean creatinine clearance before start of radiotherapy was 48.9 ml/min. After a mean follow-up of 23 months, no patient showed failure of the transplant and the mean creatinine clearance was 64.2 ml/min.
Conclusion: Using modern radiotherapy techniques, low doses to the transplant can be achieved without compromising target treatment and without transplant failure. A mean dose of <4 Gy seems to be well-tolerated by the graft.