Risk vs. Treatment
Acknowledging the risk: Why
use something that could potentially cause
cancer, to treat cancer?
Let's first answer the question: What is
cancer?
In short, it is a disease in which "some of the
body's cells begin to divide without stopping and
spread into surrounding tissues." Of course, there
are many different types of cancers (tumors, blood
cancer, etc.) that have specific effects, but the
overall idea is that there are cells that are
multiplying and affecting the natural orderly
process of the body thus negatively affecting the
person's overall health.
So, the answer to the original question "why?"
is that because x-rays and and gamma rays are
capable of killing living cells and organisms, one
could use that power to kill the living cancer
cells that are invading the body.
However, it goes without saying that the risk is
still there and so it is obviously still taken
into consideration when a doctor suggests to use
such treatment. And of course, at the end of the
day it is still the patient's decision to make.
Words
from the American Cancer
Society:
"It has been
long known that radiation therapy can slightly
raise the risk of getting another
cancer. It's one of the possible side effects
of treatment that doctors have to think about
when they weigh the benefits and risks of each
treatment. For the most part, the risk of a
second cancer is small and is outweighed by
the benefit of treating the cancer, but the
risk is not zero. This is one of the many
reasons each case is different and each person
must be part must be part of deciding which
kind of treatment is right for them.
If [the patient's] cancer care
team recommends radiation treatment, it's
because they believe that the benefits [the
patient] will get from it will outweigh the
possible side effects. Still, this is [the
patient's] decision to make."
Weighing
the options: What can the treatment do?
- Cure or shrink early-stage
cancer
If the cancer is
sensitive enough or in an early enough stage,
radiation or surgery could be the only thing
needed to treat the cancer. But sometimes
radiation is preferred because it can cause less
damage and the organ may be more likely to work
the way it should after treatment.
Even if radiation treatment
might not be the only treatment needed, it can
also help shrink the cancer (like a tumor) to make
a surgery procedure more effective (aka
pre-operative therapy).
- Stop the cancer from
coming back somewhere else
Radiation
therapy can also be used after a surgery to help
keep the cancer from coming back (aka adjuvant
therapy).
In other cases, because can
spread to other parts of the body, doctors often
assume that a few cancer cells might have already
spread to places they can't see on imaging scans
like CT scans or MRI's. So, sometimes they might
treat a part of the body, where the cancer most
often spreads to, with radiation to kill any
cancer cells before they grow into tumors.
- Treat symptoms caused by
advanced cancer
Unfortunately
there are times when a cancer has spread so much
that it is too difficult to cure, but the
treatment can still be used to shrink some of the
tumors so that the patient can feel better.
Radiation treatment can help relieve problems like
pain, trouble swallowing or breathing, or bowel
blockages (aka palliative radiation).
- Treat cancer that has
returned
Radiation
can also be used if a person's cancer has
returned. However, the use of this treatment in
this situation can depend on previous
treatments, for example if the cancer returned
in a part of the body that has been treated with
radiation before, it will be less likely to
decide to treat that same location with
radiation again. But that decision could also
depend on the amount of radiation that was used
in the previous time.
And lastly, in case anyone started
wondering if the patient becomes radioactive from
radiation therapy, the answer is: No, they
do not.
"Because there's no radiation source in [the human]
body, [the patient] is not radioactive at anytime
during or after treatment."
|
