Eli5 How does radiation therapy actually work? Like how doesnt it break down more of the body and make the cancer worse or something like that? And does it target only cancer area or everything?

Question

Eli5 How does radiation therapy actually work? Like how doesnt it break down more of the body and make the cancer worse or something like that? And does it target only cancer area or everything?

In: 630

Answer 1

I think Scishow explained it once as something like: Imagine radiation as a dose of poison. Hungry cells will eat some of the poison, but cancerous cells eat way more than normal cells so they eat way more of the poison. So, the cancerous mass will have eaten a lot of poison, and will hopefully die to it before your normal cells do.