As I understand, radiation therapy is basically directing highly concentrated x-rays/gamma radiation to kill tumors/cancer cells. I don’t quite get how, in this process of “shooting” high energy beams at the tumor, the skin/muscle cells don’t get damaged?
In: Biology
The skin does take some damage but the beam is shot from different angles so the tumour received the full dose while each part of skin affected only received one fraction of that dose.
Source: I had radiotherapy to the brain in December just gone. There was a red patch of skin on my forehead that irritated easily e.g. went redder when I scratched it. It since seems fine though I have been warned to keep it out of the sun as much as possible for at least 18 months.
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