Radiation therapy

Radiation therapy kills cancer cells or slows their growth by damaging their DNA. 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. Radiation therapy damages cells by destroying the genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide. While both healthy and cancerous cells are damaged by radiation therapy, the goal of radiation therapy is to destroy as few normal, healthy cells as possible. Normal cells can often repair much of the damage caused by radiation.

Radiation is one of the most common treatments for cancer. Other names for radiation treatment are radiation therapy, radiotherapy, irradiation, and x-ray therapy.

If you're receiving radiation to a tumor, your doctor may have you undergo periodic scans after your treatment to see how your cancer has responded to radiation therapy.

Most types of radiation therapy don’t reach all parts of the body, which means they’re not helpful in treating cancer that has spread to many places within the body. Still, radiation therapy can be used to treat many types of cancer either alone or in combination with other treatments. While it's important to remember each cancer and each person is different, radiation is often the treatment of choice for the following purposes.