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Radiation Therapy
Radiation therapy is the careful use of high-energy radiation to treat cancer. A radiation oncologist may use radiation to cure cancer or to relieve a cancer patient's pain.
Radiation therapy works because the radiation destroys the cancer cells' ability to reproduce and then the body naturally gets rid of these cells. About 50 to 60 percent of cancer patients are treated with radiation at some time during their disease.
A cancer patient may be treated with radiation alone. Prostate cancer and larynx cancer are often treated in this manner.
Sometimes radiation therapy is only 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.
Patients can be treated with radiation therapy and/or chemotherapy before surgery. This may allow a patient to have less radical surgery than would otherwise be required. For example, some bladder cancer patients can keep their bladder if they are treated with all three treatments rather than only one treatment.
A radiation oncologist may use external beam radiation therapy which is radiation generated by a machine outside a patient's body. Radiation also may be given with radioactive sources that are put inside the patient. This is called brachytherapy.
