Radiation therapy is one of the major treatment for cancer. Thus, approximately 50% of cancer patients will receive a radiotherapy treatment during their illness.
Radiotherapy’s principle is to use ionizing radiation to destroy tumours by damaging their DNA.
The benefit of radiotherapy is due to the differential effect between healthy and cancer cells: healthy cells can repair their DNA not the tumour ones resulting in the death of tumour cells.
Despite this differential effect, radiation can cause injuries to healthy tissues.
To spare healthy organs, radiotherapy is constantly evolving using sophisticated techniques. Currently modern radiotherapy can achieve sub-millimetre accuracy.
Radiotherapy can be used alone or in combination with other cancer treatment like: chemotherapy, surgery, interventional radiology… Depending on the type of cancer.
