How Radiation Therapy Works For Cancer

Radiation and cancer cells. It shrinks tumors and kills cancer cells.

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The drawback of getting chemo and radiation together is that side effects are often worse.

How radiation therapy works for cancer. In high doses radiation causes damage to cells by interfering with the cells ability to grow and reproduce. The timing of when radiation therapy is given depends on the type of cancer being treated and whether the goal of radiation therapy is to treat the cancer or ease symptoms. Radiation therapy is possible because of two key properties of cancer cells.

Radiation therapy works to harm and kill cancer cells while trying to spare normal cells as much as possible. Cells that are growing and multiplying are very sensitive to the effects of radiation. Radiation therapy may be given before during or after these other treatments to improve the chances that treatment will work.

A cancer diagnosis may mean radiation therapy. Certain chemo drugs called radiosensitizers help radiation work better by making cancer cells more sensitive to radiation. Both normal cells and cancer cells are affected by the effects of radiation.

Radiation therapy may be curative in a number of types of cancer if they are localized to one area of the body. Radiation therapy or radiotherapy often abbreviated rt rtx or xrt is therapy using ionizing radiation generally as part of cancer treatment to control or kill malignant cells and normally delivered by a linear accelerator. If youll need more than one kind of cancer treatment your cancer care team will work with you to plan your treatment.

Learn the types of therapy cancers each treats and side effects. Radiation therapy irradiation or radiotherapy is the use of high energy radiation primarily x rays to kill cancer cells.

An Introduction To Radiotherapy What Is It How Does It Work And
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