no sometimes it causes radiation, sometimes it just happens on it's own ( cue long radio-thatapy explanation...) How radiation therapy works against cancer
At high doses, radiation therapy kills cancer cells or slows their growth by damaging their DNA. Cancer cells whose DNA is damaged beyond repair stop dividing or die. When the damaged cells die, they are broken down and removed by the body.
Radiation therapy does not kill cancer cells right away. It takes days or weeks of treatment before DNA is damaged enough for cancer cells to die. Then, cancer cells keep dying for weeks or months after radiation therapy ends.
Types of radiation therapy
There are two main types of radiation therapy, external beam and internal.
The type of radiation therapy that you may have depends on many factors, including:
the type of cancer
the size of the tumor
the tumor’s location in the body
how close the tumor is to normal tissues that are sensitive to radiation
your general health and medical history
whether you will have other types of cancer treatment
other factors, such as your age and other medical conditions
External beam radiation therapy
External beam radiation therapy comes from a machine that aims radiation at your cancer. The machine is large and may be noisy. It does not touch you, but can move around you, sending radiation to a part of your body from many directions.
External beam radiation therapy is a local treatment, which means it treats a specific part of your body. For example, if you have cancer in your lung, you will have radiation only to your chest, not to your whole body.
Learn more about external beam radiation therapy.
Internal radiation therapy
Internal radiation therapy is a treatment in which a source of radiation is put inside your body. The radiation source can be solid or liquid.
Internal radiation therapy with a solid source is called brachytherapy. In this type of treatment, seeds, ribbons, or capsules that contain a radiation source are placed in your body, in or near the tumor. Like external beam radiation therapy, brachytherapy is a local treatment and treats only a specific part of your body.
With brachytherapy, the radiation source in your body will give off radiation for a while.
Learn more about brachytherapy.
Internal radiation therapy with a liquid source is called systemic therapy. Systemic means that the treatment travels in the blood to tissues throughout your body, seeking out and killing cancer cells. You receive sy
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