From what I understand from my science classes, radiation can cause cell mutation and thus cancer. If that is true, then why do they use radiation to treat cancer? Wouldn't it make the cancer worse? Also, what type of radiation do they use?
Cancer - 2 Answers
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1 :
Radiation therapy works by destroying cells, either directly or by interfering with cell reproduction using high-energy X-rays, electron beams or radioactive isotopes. When a radiated cell attempts to divide and reproduce itself, it fails to do so and dies in the attempt. Normal cells are able to repair the effects of radiation better than are malignant and other abnormal cells. Thus, normal cells are able to recover from exposure to radiation and maintain integrity and viability better than malignant cells. If the dose and delivery of radiation are well chosen and the disease is localized to the region of treatment, the cancer dies, whereas the normal tissues survive and the patient is made well again. If fewer than all the cancer cells are killed, improvement may only be short lived and the cancer may regrow. Since normal tissues are less able to withstand the effects of further radiation, repeated treatments at a later date are seldom beneficial.
2 :
Typically, radiation therapy uses conventional x-rays at very high doses, but the radiation can also consist of heavy particles, i.e. protons, or other types of radiation. Ionizing radiation interferes with the normal mechanism of cellular division and introduces abnormal duplication of DNAs. These are known as mutations. Often mutations in cells lead to early cell death. But some types of mutation lead to abnormal cellular proliferations, these become cancer. Radiation at high enough doses such as the ones in radiation therapy cause so much damage to cells that cells die, cancerous or normal cells. As stated by earlier post, normal cells can better repair themselves than cancer cells. So the goal of radiation therapy is to repeatedly radiate at doses that will be sufficient to kill cancer cells, but allow normal cell to survive.
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