In the last post in this series, I talked about how we can shape the beam of radiation in order to conform it to the shape of the tumor. If all we had to do is to shape the beam, point and shoot, this job would be easy. Unfortunately, it’s a lot more complicated than [...]
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The last post in this series showed how a linear accelerator is used to create a beam of radiation. Now we will talk about how we can conform the beam to the shape of the tumor we are trying to treat while blocking the beam from irradiating normal tissue. Once the beam is generated, it [...] So now that we know the why of radiation therapy, it’s time to move on to the how. Therapeutic radiation comes from one of two types of sources: X rays from a particle accelerator or gamma rays from radioactive material. Radioactive material is mostly used for brachytherapy, in which the radioactive material is placed inside [...] One of the biggest surprises for many of our new patients in radiation therapy is how much time it takes to get treated. They expect that they will come in, get treated, and be finished on that day. Imagine their surprise when they are told they will have to get treated each workday for up [...] This is part 1 of what will hopefully be an ongoing series of posts to attempt to remove some of the mystery around radiation therapy. I’m going to begin by explaining the rationale behind treating cancer with radiation and then move on to the behind the scenes details that go into delivering a therapeutic dose [...] |
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