if radiation causes cancer, why does radiation therapy stop cancer and not give you more cancer?

Question

if radiation causes cancer, why does radiation therapy stop cancer and not give you more cancer?

In: 2

Answer 1

Radiation breaks stuff in a cell. This is much more likely to kill the cell than it is to give it cancer.

Our body doesn’t mind losing a few cells, but cancerous cells are very dangerous, so radiation exposure over a long period is likely to cause cancer, but way *more* likely to kill cells.

You already have cancer, so while the chances of causing more cancer *are not zero*, the chances of killing the bad cells are much higher.