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
Radiation oncologist here:
Imagine having a boat in your driveway. If someone poked a bunch of holes in the boat, you could just patch the holes before taking that boat out on the water.
Now imagine you are sailing that boat as fast as you can. If someone pokes a bunch of holes in the boat, you take on water and sink before you can patch them all.
For the same reason, fast-growing cancer cells are much more easily killed by radiation compared to normal cells. They’re actively using and replicating their DNA, so when radiation damages the DNA they die.
In addition, modern radiation therapy techniques can deliver very precisely-shaped radiation fields, so that you can deliver a high dose to a tumor with much lower doses to the surrounding normal tissue.
So radiation oncology is based on selectively killing cancer cells with biology (radiation sensitivity) and also anatomy. (aiming toward tumor and away from normal tissue)
Latest Answers