Radiation Therapy for Cancer and Tumor

By : Barnavies

Radiation therapy is a form of cancer treatment that uses high levels of radiation to kill cancer cells or keep them from growing and dividing — while minimizing damage to healthy cells. It is usually given after a lumpectomy and sometimes after a mastectomy to reduce your risk of local recurrence of cancer in that breast.

Cancer Radiation Therapy

Used for many different types of cancers, such as bladder cancer, endometrial cancer, and prostate cancer, radiation therapy is called a radiation oncologist.

Like surgery, radiation therapy is a local treatment; it affects cancer cells only in the treated area. Radiation can come from a machine (external radiation). It can also come from an implant (a small container of radioactive material) placed directly into or near the tumor (internal radiation).

Therefore surgery has a 100% success rate of removing tissue within a geometric margin.

Sometimes radiation therapy is part of a patient’s treatment. For example, a woman may have radiation therapy after breast conserving surgery. She can be cured of her cancer and still keep her breast. When radiation therapy is only part of a patient’s treatment it is called adjuvant treatment.

In other hand, radiation therapy is commonly applied to the cancerous tumor. The radiation fields may also include the draining lymph nodes if they are clinically or radiologically involved with tumor, or if there is thought to be a risk of subclinical malignant spread. It is necessary to include a margin of normal tissue around the tumor to allow for uncertainties in daily set-up and internal tumor motion.

We have additional information on this subject you may be interested in reading:

• Breast cancer facts
• Alternative cure
• Alternative cancer treatment

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