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

1. Cancer cells are more susceptible to damage by radiation.

2. The therapy uses multiple beams, each of which isn’t really strong enough to cause much damage, but they’re all aimed at a tumor from different directions, so where the beams all meet (in the tumor) there’s a strong blast of radiation.