External beam radiation therapy for thyroid cancer.

This article discusses the role of external beam radiotherapy (XRT) in the management of well-differentiated thyroid cancer (WDTC), medullary thyroid cancer, and anaplastic thyroid cancer. Although there are no randomized controlled studies on the use of XRT in thyroid cancer, evidence supports its use to treat gross disease after surgery or unresectable cancer and its use as an adjuvant after resection of a known high-risk disease in WDTC, and, to a lesser extent, in medullary thyroid cancer. The use of XRT for the palliation of symptomatic disease and recent advances in the technology of radiation delivery also will be discussed.