Radiation Therapy – What You Should Know

Radiation Therapy – What You Should Know

Radiotherapy or radiation treatment is defined as the treatment of diseases (mostly malignant) with ionizing radiation (high-energy particles or waves) such as x-rays, gamma rays, electron beams, protons or other heavy ions, to destroy or damage cancer cells. Usually, X-rays are produced from X-ray tube of a Linear Accelerator and rays from TeleCobalt unit.

Ionizing radiation damage the genetic material (DNA) in vivo. Tumour cells don’t have the capacity to regenerate after this damage but normal tissue regenerates. Radiation therapy inhibits the cancer cells from dividing or reproducing and thus cure or control cancer.

Some cancers are very sensitive to radiation. Radiation may be used by itself in these cases to make the cancer shrink or completely vanish. In some cases, chemotherapy or other anti-cancer drugs may be given before or during radiation therapy. For other cancers, radiation may be used before surgery to shrink the tumour (this is called pre-operative therapy or neoadjuvant therapy), or after surgery to help prevent the cancer from coming back (called adjuvant therapy).

The purpose of radiation therapy is to deliver higher dose to the tumour for higher local control of the tumour without causing undue toxicity to the surrounding normal tissues.

Advantages of Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy is invariably cost-effective as it is usually given as an out-patient treatment- people can come in for short treatments and often continue their normal activities.

It is a local treatment so the other parts of body, which are away from radiation fields are not affected.

It is a painless treatment.

New technological advances in radiation therapy have made life better for cancer patients in recent years by making treatments even quicker, more accurate and effective.