Ratiation Therapy is an important component of anticancer treatment. It is used for different purposes, such as curative, adjunct, and palliative treatment. Radiotherapy is delivered by external beam, brachytherapy, and systemic therapy. It is administered either to focused regions only or as a whole-body treatment. Radiotherapy used to treat carcinomas, especially thoracic cancers, such as Hodgkin’s lymphoma, lung, and breast cancer, carries a high risk of developing cardiovascular side effects. Major cardiac side effects include pericarditis, coronary artery diseases, cardiomyopathy valvular dysfunction, and heart failure can occur. Pericarditis and pericardial effusions are the early onset side effects that develop within weeks while others have a late onset, often 10-20 years after treatment such as valvular heart disease and heart failure. Major risk factors that increase the likelihood of cardiac toxicity include high radiation dose, adjunct treatment with cardiotoxic chemotherapy, irradiation of the left side of the thorax (due to heart position), and the presence of other cardiovascular risk factors. Given the importance of radiation therapy in the treatment of malignancy and the high incidence of cardiovascular disease in the Western population, numerous preventive measures have been suggested and used in clinical practice such as dose limitation, beam targeting, charged particle therapy, and patient positioning.
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 most cancer cells grow and divide faster than most normal cells. Radiation works by making small breaks in the DNA inside cells. These breaks keep cancer cells from growing and dividing and cause them to die. Nearby normal cells can also be affected by radiation, but most recover and go back to working the way they should.
While chemotherapy and other treatments that are taken by mouth or injection usually expose the whole body to cancer-fighting drugs. This means it’s usually aimed at and affects only the part of the body needing treatment. Radiation treatments are planned so that they damage cancer cells with as little harm as possible to nearby healthy cells.
According to the American Cancer Society some radiation treatments (systemic radiation therapy) use radioactive substances that are given in a vein or by mouth. Even though this type of radiation does travel throughout the body, the radioactive substance mostly collects in the area of the tumor, so there is little effect on the rest of the body.
Most types of radiation therapy don’t reach all parts of the body, which means they are not helpful in treating cancer that has spread to many places within the body. Still, radiation therapy can’t be used to treat many types of cancer either alone or in combination with other treatments. While it is important to remember each cancer and each person is different, radiation is often the treatment of choice.
Getting external beam radiation therapy (the type my husband had) is the most common type of radiation therapy used to cancer treatment. A machine is used to aim high-energy rays (or beams) from outside the body into the tumor.
Radiation technology allows the very careful delivery of external beam radiation therapy. These machines focus high energy rays (or beams) from outside the body into the tumor on the exact location where it needs to be, so that normal tissues are affected as little as possible.
External radiation is usually done during outpatient visits to a hospital or treatment center. Most people get external radiation therapy over many weeks. Usually, they visit the treatment center every weekday (Monday through Friday) for a certain number of weeks. But some people may need to go to the treatment center twice a day for a fewer number of weeks. Your cancer care team will help decide how much radiation is needed to treat your cancer and how often you need to get it.
External radiation (or external beam radiation) is the most common type of radiation therapy used for cancer treatment. A machine is used to aim high-energy rays (or beams) from outside the body into the tumor.
External radiation therapy affects cells in your body only for a moment. Because there is no radiation source in your body, you are not radioactive at any time during or after treatment. Talk to your cancer care team if you have questions about special precautions.
The machine called a linear accelerator which delivers a beam (or multiple beams) or radiation. The machine has a wide arm that extends over the treatment table. The radiation comes out of this arm. The machine can move around the table to change the angle of the radiation, if needed, but it won’t touch you. The radiation beams are invisible and you will not feel anything but the machine will make noise.
If the cancer has not completely gone away or if it comes back, more treatment might be needed. In these cases, the radiation team will help decide whether or not radiation therapy is the best option. This decision depends on the type of cancer, where the tumor is, and how much radiation was given to the area before. If the maximum does has already been reached, radiation might not be the best option and other treatment may be offered. Getting radiation again to the same area is called re-irradiation.
Radiotherapy with low to intermediate doses has been historically employed for the management of several benign diseases. The exposure to ionizing radiation may increase the probability for carcinogenesis. The knowledge of this probability is of value for weighing the benefits and risks of radiotherapy against different therapeutic approaches. This study initially reviews the epidemiologic data associated with the cancer induction due to radiotherapy for non-malignant conditions in previous decades. Much of the data where derived from patients irradiated with conventional techniques, which are no longer applied, for some benign diseases not treated with radiotherapy.
With everyone’s case being different, it is hard to say who will have toxic side effects or complications and who won’t. Work closely with your oncologists and specialists.
