Radiation Therapy Essay

I have always been interested in the medical field. My father is a physiotherapist and my mother has a bachelorette in Microbiology and is a laboratory technologist. I have grown up having science-themed discussions around the dinner table and books lying around the house. With the experience of my parents at their respected professions, I did not have the feeling that these paths were the correct fit for me. I liked the hands on side of physiotherapy but I wanted something more technology related. I searched the medical field for a career that combined my fascination for both human science and technology in addition to being able to interact with patients. My research on Radiation Therapy instantly established a thought that this is a career

There are many different type of cancers, there are also many different types of treatments. One of the most known types of treatments would be chemotherapy. Chemotherapy can be used for a wide range of different types of cancers and diseases, and each of the different types of cancers or diseases require a different group, and sometimes order, of chemicals to properly treat the cancer or disease. These chemicals include: Alkylating agents, Antimetabolites, Anthracyclines, Topoisomerase inhibitors, mitotic inhibitors, corticosteroids, and more. Each of these drugs previously listed have its own cancer type(s) or disease(s) that it can assist in treating. Some of these cancers include: Leukemia, Lymphoma, Hodgkin disease, multiple

Radiation therapy can be used anywhere in the body to treat any kind of cancer. Depending on what type of radiation therapy, it can have some side effects. The most common ones include fatigue, hair loss near the treated area, and skin darkening in the area exposed to a beam of radiation. ("Radiation Therapy for Cancer,” 1) There are also safety concerns that patients have when they are treated with radiation therapy. Many people that receive radiation therapy treatment, worry about exposing family and love ones to radiation, as well as the side effects. Radiation effects on the normal tissues are divided into acute and chronic effects (Schreiber). Acute effects occur during the course of therapy and during the post therapy period (approximately 2-3 weeks after the completion of a course of irradiation) (Schreiber).

Cancer is an incurable and unpredictable disease that, if left untreated, will likely result in death for the men, women, and children who must fight it. Sadly, approximately 36% of people will develop cancer during their lifetime, and of that percentage, fewer than 15% will survive, according to the National Cancer Institute. Along with surgery and chemotherapy, radiation is one of the few known methods for treating cancer, but it does not come without harmful side effects. While radiation therapy is currently a proven method for treating cancer, dangers to patients often outweigh its benefits, therefore a safer method for effectively treating and ultimately curing cancer.

In order to fulfill my dream to work in the medical field, I plan to become a radiation therapist. Radiation therapist treat cancer and other diseases in patients by administering radiation treatments. In order to be successful at this they damage cells by destroying the genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide. Healthy and cancerous cells are damaged, but the goal is to destroy as few healthy cells as possible. Their work environment is mostly in hospitals, physician offices, and outpatient centers. They work full time and receive an estimate of $38.00 an hour and around $77,560 per year according to the records of 2012. In order to become a radiation therapist you will have to complete a program that leads to an associate’s degree or further your education with a bachelor’s degree in radiation therapy. You must be licensed in most states to work with such technology. The benefits of becoming a radiation therapist are the pay is excellent, they usually work day shift, and the fact

In Year 8, a radiotherapist came into my school with a request - to help him develop a game to explain the process of radiotherapy to his patients. I decided to help out of curiosity, thinking that it would be interesting and that I'd learn something new. It was during the development process that I learnt my first lines of Python - which I now use extensively for my programs. That experience fueled my fascination with technology and its impact on the world around me, watching how the application of computing in other fields has bettered the lives of others.

cancer cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Radiation therapy is a treatment that uses high-energy x-rays or other types of radiation to kill cancer cells or keep them from growing. Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses the patient’s immune system to fight cancer. Lastly targeted therapy, is the treatment that uses drugs and other substances to attack cancer cells. Some of these treatments are standard and others are being clinically tested in clinical trials. Patients may enter clinical trials before, during, or after starting their cancer treatment. Follow-up tests may be needed.

* Chemotherapy: Using special medicines or drugs to shrink or kill the cancer, Drugs include pills or IV. (Maybe both)

My father was put on chemo after chemo, radiation after radiation, pill after pill they all had different reactions to his body causing different things to happen for different reasons. Some would make him sick, some would make him feel like he was being electrocuted if he got cold, some made him happy, or even weak. No matter what reaction happened to his body, it didn’t get rid of the cancer if anything it made it spread. Soon the cancer was in many different organs of his

Surgery is used to efficiently remove parts of the body containing cancerous cells. This includes the tumours, normal tissue around the tumour and lymph nodes. If they didn't remove the normal tissue that surrounds the tumour and it contained cancerous cells, then the cancer could redevelop. Chemotherapy is a form of drug therapy that uses either one type or numerous types of chemotherapy drugs combined to slow down the growth of cancer cells and eliminate them. Other types of drug therapy include hormonal therapy, biological therapy and targeted therapy. Radiation therapy focuses high concentrations of radiation onto the area containing cancer cells to damage them. This treatment has daily sessions to repeat the process, the cancer cells don’t heal before the next treatment and they die, while normal cells aren't affected because they are able to repair. Since radiation can permanently damage healthy cells, doctors must use a precise amount of radiation to destroy the cancer cells, but leave normal cells intact.

The National Cancer Institute states that radiation therapy, “uses high-energy radiation to shrink tumors and kill cancer cells.” Radiation uses X-rays and gamma rays to shrink the tumors. Because cancer is rapidly growing cells, the cells need to be shrunk. By using radiation, the cancer cells’ DNA gets damaged, when the cell is damaged enough, it will stop growing and eventually die. The negative side to radiation is that it may also damage normal and healthy cells. Like chemotherapy, radiation can be given out in different doses depending on the type of cancer, size, location, etc. Besides the common treatments like radiation, there are newer, effective treatments like

    Cancer is a disease in which cells multiply out of control and gradually build a mass of tissue called a tumor. There has been a large amount of research dedicated to the treatment and cure of cancer. Several types of treatments have been developed. The following are just some of the major examples of cancer therapy: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, biologic therapy, biorhythms, unconventional treatments, and hyperthermia. Each type of treatment is discussed in detail below.

Radiation recall: is a rash that looks like a severe sunburn. Although rare, it occurs when certain forms of chemotherapy are given during or after external radiation therapy. The rash appears on the part of the body that received radiation treatment. Symptoms may include redness, tenderness, wet sores, swelling, and peeling skin.

Several methods such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy have been used to treat cancers. The cancer patients who are not helped

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.