Archive for the 'Radiation Therapy' Category

According to a study, patients with a rare type of breast cancer may benefit from receiving radiation therapy in addition to surgery to prevent recurrence.

Phyllodes tumors are rare breast tumors that develop in the connective tissue of the breast, as opposed to more common carcinomas, which develop in the ducts or lobules of the breast.

Most patients are treated for phyllodes tumors with either a lumpectomy or mastectomy, with only a small fraction of patients receiving radiation therapy.

Traditionally, adjuvant radiation therapy is recommended for cancer patients with local recurrence risks of 15 percent or greater, but the value of adjuvant radiation therapy has not been extensively studied for phyllodes tumors because they are so rare.

Researchers sought to determine the local recurrence rates of phyllodes tumors based on tumor size and the type of surgery performed and whether adjuvant radiation therapy should be considered as a treatment for some phyllodes tumor patients to reduce their local recurrence rate.

“Typically these tumors are treated well by surgery alone. However, local recurrences are not uncommon,” Richard Pezner, M.D., lead author of the study and a radiation oncologist at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif., said.

With the discovery of the X-ray by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (A German physicist), the powerful rays were being used effectively in treating cancer.

However, today, you can get treated successfully and effectively, with very little side effects and protecting normal tissue, by means of radiation therapy.

Radiation therapy is one of the treatments used to treat cancer. It can be used as a single treatment or along with other types of treatment, mostly surgery or chemotherapy.

Radiation therapy is also known as radiotherapy. More than half of all cancer patients receive radiation therapy as part of their treatment.

Cancer is a group of diseases characterized by the division and growth of abnormal cells uncontrollably. It can spread from its own site to the nearby parts of the body.

Radiation therapy in high-doses kills these cancer cells and keeps them from growing and reproducing, because the cancer cells grow and divide more quickly than normal cells around them.

Even the normal cells are also affected, but most of these cells get recuperate with the radiation effects.

The radiation can be given to you (cancer patient) either externally by means of external beam radiation, or through internal radiation, also called brachytherapy.