Radiation therapy or Radiotherapy

Radiation therapy is one of three most
common methods of eradicating Cancer cells.
What does it do? How is it done?
Is it safe? What are the side effects?
Is the Cancer completely gone? Find out more.

Radiation therapy (also known as radiotherapy, irradiation or X-ray therapy) is a procedure done where the Cancer cells are destroyed by radiation.

Commonly, the radiation is given by large doses of high-energy rays aimed on the tumor from a radiation gun outside the body.

These energy rays can be from X-rays, gamma rays, particle beams, or proton beams.

In many cases, radiotherapy is administered together with chemotherapy and/or surgery.

How is radiation therapy done?

The objective of radiation therapy is to destroy the cancer cells and try to limit its effect on nearby healthy cells, though it is hard to abide.

So the adjusting of the correct angle, the masking for protection of other organs, the measuring of the correct dosage of radiation become a very important part of the procedure.

Much of the time spent will be planning to minimize damage to healthy tissues and to calculate how much of the radiation you can receive each day.

In each session, you will be made to lie down on the receiving table where the radiation gun will shoot the radiation from a measured angle.

The patient may be strapped down to avoid mistakes in targeting.

The actual treatment in each session is very short, sometimes only 5 minutes and you do not feel any pain during that time, but the after side effects are many.

Many of the cancer cells do not die straight away, and it may take days or weeks of radiotherapy before they start to die.

Radiotherapy is done spread out over a period of time, and given only once a day.

This allows the doses to be smaller and given regularly.

It also gives time for the normal cells to recover after each treatment.

Due to the high possibility of serious damage to nearby cells, radiotherapy is still evolving into newer methods or procedures of greater precision and focus.

Side effects of radiation therapy

Even though you may not have any pain or discomfort during the time of treatment, but the side effects are numerous.

There will be physical and emotional side effects of radiotherapy though not every one will have all these effects.

These side effects are the result of the radiation damage to the healthy cells of the body.

One particular organ that will suffer damage is your brain, which in turn affects so many different parts of the rest of the body.

Your normal brain tissues are very sensitive to radiation, and some of the affected brain functions include memory loss, changes in personality and lack of concentration.

The type of side effects will also depend on where the radiation was given, the dosage used and whether the radiation was administered externally or internally through a tube feeding the radioactive matter to the cancer cells.

Your oncologist will tell you that the side effects are unavoidable, but it is the "lesser of two evils".

Other side effects are emotional trauma, easily irritated, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, headaches etc.

You will feel tired easily because much of your body's energy is fed to cell repair work.

The area receiving the radiation will have skin damage and changes in pigmentation.

Sometimes the patient may lose their hair completely.

The soft tissues inside the mouth and gums will crack and bleed.

Oral and throat ulcers will form making it hard to ingest food or even liquid, without much pain.

Often tooth decay and hearing loss is common.

If the radiation is given to the abdominal area, gastro-intestinal problems will occur such as diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite and stomach pains.

At the genetic level, your genes may be damaged and there is a risk of developing a second cancer in the area where you received the radiation.

At the cellular level, your blood cells, the red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, will be affected if not damaged.

Some patients have to receive blood transfusion after radiation therapy.

For the women, the reproduction organs may be affected, whilst for the men, their sperm count will drop.

Weigh the pros and cons

Radiation therapy is a convention orthodox Cancer treatment method.

The decision to have radiation therapy as a treatment lies entirely upon your shoulder, and not on the oncologist or other peer pressures.

The physician may say there is no choice but you have a choice. There are alternatives.

He will say you have no time, but you have time, because Cancer does not kill you overnight.

This site is to help you make that choice by giving you the knowledge to do so.

Look into other alternative methods of eradicating Cancer, then make a responsible decision and stick with it.

Further Readings:

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are known to make men sterile in some cases, which is the reason many men are encouraged to deposit sperm," she said.

Fox news: Standard forms of treatment - surgery, radiation or hormone therapy - all can cause harm, resulting in impotence and incontinence in about a third of patients.

Patients Get Overdose of Radiation From CT Scans at Los Angeles Hospital

Latest victim, a 34-year-old man identified as Jo, died of complications from radiation-therapy, shortly after returning to work after completing his treatment for laryngeal cancer.

Nearly 20 percent of participants received at least moderate annual doses of radiation from diagnostic tests, and women and older individuals were at greater risk for radiation exposure, according to a report in the August 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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