What type of radiation kills cancer?
What is radiation therapy? Radiation therapy uses high-energy particles or waves, such as x-rays, gamma rays, electron beams, or protons, to destroy or damage cancer cells. Your cells normally grow and divide to form new cells. But cancer cells grow and divide faster than most normal cells.
What type of radiation is used for radiation therapy?
Radiation therapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses beams of intense energy to kill cancer cells. Radiation therapy most often uses X-rays, but protons or other types of energy also can be used. The term “radiation therapy” most often refers to external beam radiation therapy.
What kind of cancer can be treated with radiation?
Types of Cancer that Are Treated with Radiation Therapy. External beam radiation therapy is used to treat many types of cancer. Internal radiation therapy is often used to treat cancers of the head and neck, breast, cervix, prostate, eye, and certain types of thyroid cancer.
How is radiation therapy used to treat lung cancer?
External Beam Radiation Therapy. External beam radiation therapy is a local treatment, which means it treats a specific part of your body. For example, if you have cancer in your lung, you will have radiation only to your chest, not to your whole body. Learn more about external beam radiation therapy.
What kind of radiation therapy is used for prostate cancer?
Another type of systemic radiation therapy, called targeted radionuclide therapy, is used to treat some patients who have advanced prostate cancer or gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (GEP-NET). This type of treatment may also be referred to as molecular radiotherapy.
How is systemic radiation therapy used to treat cancer?
Internal radiation therapy with a liquid source is called systemic therapy. Systemic means that the treatment travels in the blood to tissues throughout your body, seeking out and killing cancer cells. You receive systemic radiation therapy by swallowing, through a vein via an IV line, or through an injection.
What is radiation therapy and how is it used to treat cancer?
Radiation therapy (also called radiotherapy) is a cancer treatment that uses high doses of radiation to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors . At low doses, radiation is used in x-rays to see inside your body, as with x-rays of your teeth or broken bones. At high doses, radiation therapy kills cancer cells or slows their growth by damaging their DNA.
How does radiation kill cancer if it causes cancer?
Radiation works in two ways to kill cancer cells. First, the energy that makes up the radiation directly damages the DNA of any cells that it hits. It damages DNA in such a way that the cell is no longer able to divide and grow, thus, it eventually dies. Second, the radiation ionizes (in a sense, “charges up”) water molecules near the cancer cells.
How long does it take to recover from radiation treatment?
The general effects of radiation therapy like fatigue, nausea, and headaches resolve fairly quickly after treatment. Your body just needs time to process the radiation but can recover within a few weeks.
How is radiation therapy performed to treat cancer?
- External radiation (or external beam radiation): uses a machine that directs high-energy rays from outside the body into the tumor.
- Internal radiation: Internal radiation is also called brachytherapy.
- Systemic radiation: Radioactive drugs given by mouth or put into a vein are used to treat certain types of cancer.