Radiotherapy is using radiations to treat cancer cells. You may have it inside your body or from outside your body. The Department of Radiation Oncology uses it to cure cancer and lower the risk of cancer coming back and to cure the symptoms. It can be done alone or with other procedures like surgery and chemotherapy. More than 50% of cancer patients have radiotherapy at some point during their treatment. It is actually done by means of photons but sometimes you may also have electrons and rare protons. The treatment depends on your doctor.
How does Radiotherapy functions?
Radiotherapy completely destroys the cancer cells by killing the DNAs. However, it also impacts the normal cells which may create some side effect at the place you are receiving it. But, the side effects are gone after a few weeks of therapy.
Objective of radiotherapy treatment
Every person has his own individual radiotherapy treatment. It aims to give a high dose to the cancer and smaller dose to the surrounding cells. This increases the highest chance of shrinking or healing the disease thereby lowering the chances of side effect along with it.
Treatment procedure
When you are looking for the treatment course, then it is very important to take your doctor into account. He will explain you the course of treatment depending on these points:
- Type of cancer you have
- Position of the cancer in your body/
- Any other possible treatment which you have had, will have
- Your BMI, health and fitness
If you want to cure cancer through radiotherapy, then it basically lasts between 1 to 7 weeks. And, in order to relieve the symptoms, the treatment may take something in between one to 2 week of therapy. If your cancer is severe, it may take longer than this. It is up to your doctors to tell you how many treatments you need.
A lot of cancer patients undergo daily treatment from during the weekdays with just rest on the weekends. But the situation varies. For instance, if you have the treatment once per week for several weeks, it is also possible that you have to undergo more than one treatment every day.
Inform your radiographer about your prior appointments and commitments, if you have any.
Where is radiotherapy given?
Primarily, you get the radiotherapy done at major cancer treatment hospitals. So, it is possible that you may have undergone some cancer treatment like surgery or chemotherapy at one place, but your radiotherapy is done somewhere else. You are given external beam radiotherapy if you are outpatient. But, if you are not well or you are having chemotherapy, then you may have to stay at the hospital. If you have internal radiotherapy, then also you need to stay in the hospital for some days.
Department of Radiation Oncology doctors suggest that this treatment helps in controlling the disease for a long time when curing is not possible. With new advancement in this field, doctors are trying hard to give patients a new ray of hope in this field.
