What is Radiation Therapy and what does it do?

  • Radiation Therapy is use of high energy Ionization radiation (often X Rays ) to kill a cancer cell by damaging its DNA.
  • Goal of Radiation Therapy (RT) is to use focused beams of radiation to kill cancer cell with as little risk as possible to normal cells.
  • Radiation treatment, like surgery, is a local treatment.
  • It affects the cancer cells only in a specific area of the body.
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Timing of RT

  • RT can be used before surgery to shrink a tumor, called as neoadjuvant/pre operative RT (Pre op RT).
  • It may be used after surgery to stop growth of cancer cells that may remain called as adjuvant RT (Post op RT).
  • At times radiation is used alone with curative intent which is called as Radical RT.
  • It can also be used at the time of surgery known as Intraoperative Radiation (IORT).

Timing of RT

  • When the source of radiation is from a machine outside the body, it is known as External Beam Radiation therapy (EBRT).
  • When radioactive material is placed close to tumour or area harboring cancer cells it is known as Brachytherapy.

What is EBRT?

  • EBRT is usually given during outpatient visits (OPD Treatment) to a hospital.
  • In this, a machine (also called as Linear Accelerator/LA) directs the high energy rays at the tumor bearing area within body.
  • Linear Accelerators have the capability of delivering RT by various techniques like IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy), IGRT (Image Guided Radiation Therapy), SRS (Stereotactic Radiation Therapy) and SBRT (Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy).