why cancer is treated with radiation?

fab_mary

For some types of cancers the only treatment is radiation, however the same radiation sometimes is the primal cause of it (cancer). How chemotherapy (or iodine radioactive pill) work, and why it do not increase risk factor of getting cancer afterall?

Riamfada

Im no biochemist but dosn't radiation kill the cancer cells?

fab_mary

Grimes wrote:

Im no biochemist but dosn't radiation kill the cancer cells?

Yep, but it also cause other cells to mutate

Riamfada

Sorry Im sad and drunk but i figure ( and this may seem harsh ) that If you already have cancer . And you take a treatment that may kill your cancer but also MAY cause further cancers . Its worth the risk in hoping that the radiation may or may not cause further cancerous effects.

fab_mary

The doses given often unresonable compared with the risk and the damage to the body. But I also agree with you that life (even in bed) is better than death from cancer.

P.S. Don't be sad... I do not have cancer and none of ones i am close to have cancer. Just something that I came across...

DapperGent

It seems that a lot of the beneficial effects produced by radiation therapy and chemotherapy are to do with a stimulation of your bodies own anti-cancer mechanisms. They fight rogue cells all the time cancer is really just a case of them being overwhelmed or missing something.

Cancer treatment is astonishingly crude in some ways. I guess it's all there is though.

athena 2000

Cancer treatment has also come a long way. The newer gamma knife surgery for brain tumors is becoming more available and it's truly wonderful technology.

Capt'n Midnight

Cancer cells are part of your body and so almost any thing you can think of would affect your normal cells equally unless you exploit a subtle difference between them. For radiation you rely mainly on the fact that the cancer is locallised and so you are killing whatever is a certain target area. By moving the radiation source while keeping it directed at the target area the dose to surounding cells can be minimised. There is no safe dose of radiation. But by the time you need radiotherapy the sightly increased possibility of creating a new malignant cancer is a much lower risk then allowing the existing cancer to go untreated.

Radioactive Iodine - at a guess it's for the thyroid because that's where Iodine would be concentrated and would be of no use for most other types of cancer.

DrIndy

fab_mary wrote:

For some types of cancers the only treatment is radiation, however the same radiation sometimes is the primal cause of it (cancer). How chemotherapy (or iodine radioactive pill) work, and why it do not increase risk factor of getting cancer afterall?

Cancer treatment is complex and can involve surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and also immune therapy.

You have to look back at the cause of cancer, the mutations of the genes (which trigger the uncontrolled growth) and the immune surveillance system failing to detect the cancer cell. The immune effect is a very exciting one and we know that the immune system normally sweeps out cancer cells (natural killer cells). A defect of this can be linked to why cancer develops. People who are immunosuppressed such as after a kidney transplant have a much higher risk of developing skin cancer partly because the immune system is not active in removing the cancer cells.

You get different radiation treatments too - you can use Beta-rays to treat surface cancer on the skin, linear accelerators which produce gamma rays that treat deeper tumours and then brachytherapy where radioactive rods are inserted into the cancer itself to kill it. One of the newest developments is to create a molecule which only attaches to certain cancer strains which contain a radioactive atom. This delivers the dose precisely where it is needed.

The basis of cancer treatment is to kill the malignant cells yet to do the least damage to other tissues. Radiation therapy is suitable for larger tumours that can be detected on a CT scan. Doses are fractionated and delivered in separate beams (sometimes in a circle, other times from 4 directions) this maximises the dose going to the cancer, but minimising the dose to the other tissue. Radiation triggers free radicals which are toxic and kill the cells off.

Radiation therapy has less side effects than chemotherapy and remain generally local, however is not suitable for eliminating all cells as they can only target larger zones.

Radiation therapy is used in brain tumours as chemotherapy is very toxic to the brain and the blood brain barrier prevents its entry.

Whole body radiation is used to treat leukaemia and lymphoma to prepare for a stem cell transplant.

Radioactive iodine is only used to treat certain thyroid cancers which have an uptake for iodine. Because it is so specific to thyroid tissue - this treatment is very, very successful.

YES - radiation can cause other cancers - but its a case of the course of least damage. To treat a cancer now with radiation and risk the development of a second cancer in 20 years time is a risk that should be considered - but the immediate need takes precedence.

People treated with chemotherapy do have a larger chance of developing leukaemias later on if the original therapy was successful.

The principle of cancer therapy is to selectively kill the cancer cells. Although they are dividing constantly, their genetics are deranged too and this is what makes them more susceptible to chemotherapy. Fast dividing cells are most affected by drugs that halt this division. The side effects of chemotherapy are also greates in other tissues that also divide rapidly, such as hair, bone marrow and the gut.

goat2

why does a person have to have both the chemo and radiotherapy, I know someone who has this going on at moment,

arkrow

New Film “Second Opinion” Exposes the Truth About a 40-Year Long Cover-Up of Laetrile Cancer Treatment

articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/10/18/laetrile-cancer-research-cover-up.aspx


What you guys make of this?