Pros And Cons Of Radiation Therapy In Cancer

Radiotherapy, also called radiation therapy, is the treatment of cancer and other diseases with radiation. Radiotherapy is used when the entire primary tumor cannot be surgically removed. Radiotherapy deposits energy

High doses of radiation kill cancer cells and stop them from spreading, while at low doses radiation is used to see insides of the human body, such as x-rays (WebMD).

Radiation therapy is commonly used as a proven and widely accepted way to treat cancer. The American Cancer Society attests to this because of the extensive research they have done in this field. High-energy radiation damages a cell’s deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). When a cell divides, its DNA splits. According to the Mayo Clinic, radiation therapy is sometimes given with curative intent (that is, with the hope that the treatment will cure cancer, either by eliminating a tumor, preventing cancer recurrence, or by both). In such cases, radiation therapy may be used alone or in combination with surgery, chemotherapy, or all three. Radiation therapy may also be given with palliative intent. Palliative treatments are not intended to cure. Instead, they are meant to relieve certain symptoms and reduce

Using a combination of x-rays, gamma rays, and charged particles, radiation can target the DNA molecule in a cell and directly attack it or put charged particles in the DNA molecule that will damage the DNA molecule in the cell. This mean that for medical purposes radiation can be used to kill the cancer cells. Or, sometimes even cure someone of cancer. This also means that someone could have the option for either chemotherapy and radiation instead of just chemotherapy. Also, since radiation can kill cancer cells and be used as a cancer treatment, radiation can also be used shrink tumors.

Radiation therapy of lung cancer uses powerful X-rays and high energy to kill cancer cells or sometimes to prevent them from growing.

Doctors had been using radiation to destroy cancerous cells since the unfolding of X-rays and radium in the 1890s, but both techniques had their own issues. X-ray machines were complicated to make use of, and radium implanted near tumors. In addition, X-rays weren’t strong enough to be entirely effective, and as for both of them, they were quite expensive.

Cancer is given to a whole collection of related diseases. Cancer cells begin to divide unregulated and spread into surrounding tissues. Scientists have proposed that lots of SP2 protein may transform to normal cells into cancer cells. In addition, the deprivation of specific co-stimulated molecules can impair the natural killer cells ability and lead to the cancer. Cancer occurs almost anyplace in the human body. Cells become old and become more abnormal or cells, which are damaged when they should die, divide without stopping and may constitute growths called tumors. Also cancer cells are less specialized than normal cells. The first and original tumor is called primary tumor. Primary tumor may spread to other parts of the body and create new tumors.

Radiation therapy is the use special machines to convey high-energy rays that damage cancer cells and stop them from growing. The radiation can be directed to a specific area of the body or the whole body. Some side effects that come from the therapy are fatigue, hair loss, nausea, or red, dry, itchy skin.

Radiation therapy is the ionization of atoms in tissues resulting in formation of highly reactive radicals in a well-defined, restricted volume (1). In other words, ionizing radiations are used to eradicate tumors and at the same time preserve structure and function of normal tissue. A limitation is prevented from being a problem. If bone marrow or neuronal cells are destroyed or injured, they do not regenerate. However, with radiation therapy, these cells are often saved from injury or destruction, unless the tumor is infecting bone marrow or neuronal cells. Today, radiation therapy is the most popular type of cancer therapy in use. It is used to treat one-half to two-thirds of all cancers, which translates to more than ten percent of the population

Radiation therapy is usually a part of the treatment for most cancer patients, It is a local not systemic treatment that can kill cancer cells with causing as little damage as possible to surrounding normal cells. Since it is a localized treatment , it can't be used for all types of cancer , thus it can't be used for patients with diffuse tumors throughout the body like metastasis cancer.

viewed to be the most devastating form of radiation for a living organism. Due to their

Radiation therapy is the use of high-energy radiation from x-rays, gamma rays, neutrons, protons, and other sources to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors (National Cancer Institute, 2016). One of the main purposes of radiation is to preserve the normal cells while killing the cancer cells. To fully understand the importance of radiation therapy it is imperative to understand its discovery. The discovery of radioactivity is attributed to Henri Becquerel in Paris. His discovery was purely accidental, as most discoveries are, while attempting an experiment that utilized the sun, uranium, and photographic plates. On 26-27 February 1896, Henri Becquerel took the uranium and photographic plates wrapped in black paper to initiate his experiment by placing them in the path of sun light, but to his misfortune it was overcast both days. Thinking that his experiment was a failure, Becquerel decided to develop the photographic plates and found that uranium did not need the sun’s rays to emit radiation due to its own radioactive properties, thus discovering radioactivity. The actual term “radioactivity” was coined by Marie Curie, a Polish born physicist, who along with her husband had been studying the phenomenon that was discovered by Becquerel (Lawrence Berkely National Lab, 2000).

This actually helps shrink the tumors, rather than just diagnose them. It uses high-energy radiation to help cure the tumors and kill the cancer cells. Gamma rays and charged particles are types of radiation used for cancer treatment. Treatment can be delivered in two ways; a machine outside the body which is an external beam, or a radioactive material that is placed in the body near the cancer cells, which is called brachytherapy (radiation therapy for cancer, n.d.). Radiation therapy is different from chemotherapy, which exposes the whole body to cancer-fighting drugs. Radiation therapy, on the other hand, is local, its aimed at, and effects only the parts it needs to. The, “goal is to damage cancer cells without harming healthy cells” (How does radiation therapy work, 2015). Radiation therapy is preferred to chemotherapy because it tends to not harm the rest of the body, just the spot that is needed. Radiation therapy is a good option when someone is diagnosed with cancer, even with the

In 2007, it is predicted that almost 1.5 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in the United States (Pickle et al., 2007). More than half of these cancer patients will undergo the use of radiation as a means for treating cancer at some point during the course of their disease (Perez and Brady, 1998). Cancer, a disease caused by an uncontrollable growth of abnormal cells, affects millions of people around the world. Radiotherapy is one of the well known various methods used to treat cancer, where high powered rays are aimed directly at the tumor from the outside of the body as external radiation or an instrument is surgically placed inside the body producing a result of internal radiation. Radiation is delivered to the cancerous regions of the body to damage and destroy the cells in that area, terminating the rapid growth and division of the cells. Radiation therapy has been used by medicine as a treatment for cancer from the beginning of the twentieth century, with its earliest beginnings coming from the discovery of x-rays in 1895 by Wilhelm Röntgen. With the advancements in physics and computer programming, radiation had greatly evolved towards the end of the twentieth century and made the radiation treatment more effective. Radiation therapy is a curative treatment approach for cancer because it is successful in killing cancerous tumor cells and stop them from regenerating.

Cancer is one of our planets most concerning illnesses at this time. It is the uncontrollable growth and forming of malignant tumours. In 2007, it was said to cause about 13% of all human deaths worldwide (Kleinsmith, Lewis J. M.D). Some cancers may be cured and this depends on certain variables such as the type of cancer, where the cancer is, and how early it has been detected.