What is radiation therapy?
In radiation therapy, high doses of radiation (such as those found in X-rays) are used to shrink or eliminate tumors. In treating adults, the radiation is directed onto the body. In treating children, radioactive materials are encased in needles, seeds, wires, or catheters and placed directly into cancer sites.
Radiation is a special kind of energy carried by waves or a stream of particles. It can come from special machines or from radioactive substances. When radiation is used at high doses (many times those used for x-ray exams), it can treat cancer and other illnesses. Special equipment is used to aim the radiation at tumors or areas of the body where there is disease. The use of high-energy rays or particles to treat disease is called radiation therapy. Sometimes it’s called radiotherapy, x-ray therapy, electron beam therapy, or irradiation. Your radiation therapy program is designed specifically for you. Therefore, your treatment may be different from that of other patients with the same type of cancer.
Radiation Therapy is a clinical specialty which utilizes very high energy X-rays, gamma rays, electron beams, or other ionizing radiation to manage and treat many types of cancer malignancies (and occasionally some non-malignant conditions). Radiation can be administered externally or internally. You and your doctor will discuss which type works best for you. Radiation works by “ionizing” or breaking apart atoms that make up the cell walls and other parts of cells in your treatment area. Cells exposed to radiation are unable to reproduce, but healthy cells recover more quickly than malignant cells. The trick of radiation therapy is to give enough radiation to compromise the cancer cells, while leaving enough healthy cells to repopulate and heal the exposed area. Sometimes radiation therapy is called radiotherapy, x-ray therapy, electron beam therapy, or irradiation.
Radiation therapy (also known as Radiation Oncology) is one of the most common treatments for cancer, used in more than half of all cancer cases. In radiation therapy, we use high-energy x-rays or electron beams to destroy cancer cells in your body. The radiation is delivered by a special machine called a linear accelerator, or by radioactive substances that are implanted or injected. Radiation therapy has been used successfully for treating cancer for over 100 years! In simple terms, cancer cells are killed when they absorb a given amount of ionizing radiation. By delivering a calculated amount of radiation over a specific amount of time, the malignant cells are destroyed. Healthy tissue that is irradiated has the ability to repair itself, where as the cancer cells can not.
Radiation Therapy is the delivery of treatment using radiations from natural or artificial sources to treat disease, most often cancer. Natural sources include Cobalt-60, Iodine-131, Iodine-125, Gold-189, and isotopes or other variants of other elements as well. Radiations are produced or emitted by these elements and are used like x-rays. You may see them referred to as gamma rays when they are from naturally occurring sources as opposed to x-rays which are from artificial sources, or are particles like electrons, protons, and other subatomic particles. Artificial sources are linear accelerators or other machines which produce highly penetrating x-rays. These radiations are shaped and/or combined to provide the best treatment for the patient’s disease in which they are used. In the treatment of cancer, radiation therapy is frequently coordinated with other treatments, such as chemotherapy and/or radiation and/or surgery. This is called combined-modality treatment.
