Beams of radiation are precisely aimed at the cancer using a machine that moves around your body. Radiation therapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses beams of intense energy to kill cancer cells. Radiation therapy most often uses X-rays, but protons or other types of energy also can be used. The term "radiation therapy" most often refers to external beam radiation therapy. During this type of radiation, the high-energy beams come from a machine outside of your body that aims the beams at a precise point on your body.
During a different type of radiation treatment called brachytherapy brak-e-THER-uh-pee , radiation is placed inside your body. Radiation therapy damages cells by destroying the genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide. While both healthy and cancerous cells are damaged by radiation therapy, the goal of radiation therapy is to destroy as few normal, healthy cells as possible. Normal cells can often repair much of the damage caused by radiation.
More than half of all people with cancer receive radiation therapy as part of their cancer treatment. Doctors use radiation therapy to treat just about every type of cancer. Radiation therapy is also useful in treating some noncancerous benign tumors. Your doctor may suggest radiation therapy as an option at different times during your cancer treatment and for different reasons, including:.
Radiation therapy side effects depend on which part of your body is being exposed to radiation and how much radiation is used.
You may experience no side effects, or you may experience several. Most side effects are temporary, can be controlled and generally disappear over time once treatment has ended. Some side effects may develop later. For example, in rare circumstances a new cancer second primary cancer that's different from the first one treated with radiation may develop years later.
Ask your doctor about potential side effects, both short and long term, that may occur after your treatment. Before you undergo external beam radiation therapy, your health care team guides you through a planning process to ensure that radiation reaches the precise spot in your body where it's needed. Planning typically includes:. After the planning process, your radiation therapy team decides what type of radiation and what dose you'll receive based on your type and stage of cancer, your general health, and the goals for your treatment.
The precise dose and focus of radiation beams used in your treatment is carefully planned to maximize the radiation to your cancer cells and minimize the harm to surrounding healthy tissue. Other names for radiation treatment are radiation therapy , radiotherapy , irradiation , and x-ray therapy.
Radiation therapy uses high-energy particles or waves, such as x-rays, gamma rays, electron beams, or protons, to destroy or damage cancer cells. Your cells normally grow and divide to form new cells. But cancer cells grow and divide faster than most normal cells. Radiation works by making small breaks in the DNA inside cells.
These breaks keep cancer cells from growing and dividing and cause them to die. Nearby normal cells can also be affected by radiation, but most recover and go back to working the way they should. While chemotherapy and other treatments that are taken by mouth or injection usually expose the whole body to cancer-fighting drugs, radiation therapy is usually a local treatment. Radiation treatments are planned so that they damage cancer cells with as little harm as possible to nearby healthy cells.
Some radiation treatments systemic radiation therapy use radioactive substances that are given in a vein or by mouth. More than half of people with cancer get radiation therapy. Sometimes, radiation therapy is the only cancer treatment needed and sometimes it's used with other types of treatment.
The decision to use radiation therapy depends on the type and stage of cancer, and other health problems a patient might have.
Still, radiation therapy can be used to treat many types of cancer either alone or in combination with other treatments. While it's important to remember each cancer and each person is different, radiation is often the treatment of choice for the following purposes.
Some cancers are very sensitive to radiation. Radiation may be used by itself in these cases to make the cancer shrink or completely go away. In some cases, chemotherapy or other anti-cancer drugs may be given first. For other cancers, radiation may be used before surgery to shrink the tumor this is called pre-operative therapy or neoadjuvant therapy , or after surgery to help keep the cancer from coming back called adjuvant therapy.
For certain cancers that can be cured either by radiation or by surgery, radiation may be the preferred treatment. This is because radiation can cause less damage and the part of the body involved may be more likely to work the way it should after treatment.
Your care team will tattoo a few tiny dots on you in your affected area so they can line up the machine correctly with your tumor. The needle is tiny, and it doesn't hurt.
Still, I cried. I have never had a tattoo, and I didn't want one. I didn't know having cancer would mean I would have tattooed dots on me the rest of my life.
It's a little thing, but I wish someone would have told me beforehand. Your skin will begin breaking down , or at least that's how the doctors describe it. What does that mean exactly? It means your skin will become red and sensitive in the affected area, and then will dissolve.
You will have some open burns, but Aquaphor or some other healing ointment can help. It does hurt. The hardest part of treatment for me was climbing back on that treatment table during the fifth or sixth week of treatment.
That is where raw courage and strength will be required. It took all my self-discipline to do it. I did it because I want to live. You will have side effects the rest of your life. Just expect it. It's a small price to pay for surviving cancer. For me, it's lymphedema , or swelling, in my left leg.
Because they took out some lymph nodes, the fluids and blood flow were now getting trapped in my lower leg. But compression sleeves and a compression pump can help reduce swelling and pain. So, there you go. I hope this will help prepare you for your radiation journey. It's not going to be a walk through the park, but it's not all bad.
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