What is radiation therapy?
Radiation therapy is the use of carefully calibrated amounts of high-intensity radiation to kill tumor cells. It is usually used after surgical resection of tumors to kill any remaining cells. It is administered by radiation oncologists and given in brief, daily, outpatient treatments over several weeks.
Radiation therapy is the use of high-energy radiation to treat cancer. Types of radiation used include x-rays, radioactive isotopes, and electrons. Radiation is used to treat cancer because it interferes with the ability of cells to grow and multiply. Healthy tissues have more resistance to radiation and more power to repair after being exposed to radiation. The goal of radiation therapy is to eliminate the cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue. Radiation only affects the tissues directly in its path.
AROA PictureRadiation therapy is one of the three major ways to treat cancer; the other two are surgery and chemotherapy. Everyone knows what surgery is: something gets cut out or cut off. What most people don’t understand is the difference between chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Chemotherapy – or chemo, for short – is basically a treatment procedure that circulates anti-cancer medicine throughout the entire body. This is most often given as an intravenous (IV) infusion or by pill form. Radiation therapy is the use of x-rays or gamma rays to treat cancer. X-rays and gamma rays are basically the same, although they come from different sources. When a radioactive source such as cobalt or radium is used, as was common in the past, the ray produced was a gamma ray. In modern radiotherapy, AROA Picturex-rays are produced in a machine called a linear accelerator. The only time radioactive sources are used today is with radioactive implants. Your physician will tell you if this is indicat
