The History of Cancer Radiotherapy
When Rontgen and Becquerel discovered radiation and x – rays during the late 1800s it stimulated the development and research for radiation application. Also, during the turn of the century, Marie Curie received a Nobel Prize for her work and research on radioactive elements. Coincidently, based on several studies at that time, physicians and scientist discovered that radiation exposure slowed and regressed the development of several cancerous tumors. At that time experts could not find the cause of this phenomena even though based on historical data, the first oncologist treated successfully the first cancer patient in 1898. During this early era of radiotherapy, it was mainly used to treat superficial types of cancer. Interestingly enough, most cancer cases treated at this time had a tendency to reoccur due to the inconsistent specification of radiation application procedures and the huge doses of radiation the patient was exposed to. The development of [...]
Understanding the Various Techniques of Radiotherapy
Radiation therapy or also known as radiotherapy is regularly used to treat cancer. Currently, along with surgery and chemotherapy, radiotherapy is a standard treatment protocol for various types of cancer. Though, compared to other types of treatment modalities such as surgery and chemotherapy, radiotherapy has the least amount of knowledge and understanding by a majority of the public. Basically, there are four variations or types of radiotherapy which are explained below. First of all is the conventional and conformal therapy, this procedure is usually administered to simple and basic cancer cases. This technique uses single or double beam directions to irradiate a specific target area without the use of intricate shielding areas of the body that has not been affected by the cancer such as the spine or brain. The basic principal for this procedure is applying multiple radiation beam directions to focus as close as possible towards the target [...]