What is Radiation Therapy?
Treatment Process
Cancer Center at Fairfax
Cancer Center at Gaithersburg
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What is Radiation Therapy?
Radiation therapy is the therapeutic use of high energy x-rays to treat cancerous tumors or
areas from which tumors were removed. Radiation therapy may be used to try to cure
cancer, to control the growth of the cancer or to relieve symptoms such as pain. Unlike
other forms of x-rays, therapeutic radiation is more penetrating and focused. The radiation
disrupts the genetic make-up of both normal and cancerous cells. The damage to normal
cells is usually temporary and repairable; however, the damage to cancer cells is intended
to be permanent. This damage helps to prevent the cancerous cells from reproducing.
Sometimes, radiation therapy is the only treatment a patient needs, and other times it is
integrated with chemotherapy and/or surgery.
Some patients have concerns about the safety of radiation therapy. Radiation has been
used successfully to treat patients for more than a century. External beam treatments, such
as those provided at this Center, do not cause the patient to become radioactive following
treatment because the radiation does not stay in the body.
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