Used alone or in conjunction with surgery, chemotherapy, and other treatments, radiation therapy is one of the oldest cancer treatments, dating back to the 1890s.
Unlike chemotherapy, which is a “systemic” therapy, meaning it is medicine that travels through the bloodstream to all parts of the body, radiation therapy is targeted directly at a tumor in a specific location inside the body. For this reason, radiation is considered a “local” therapy. It uses focused beams of high-dose radiation to destroy cancer cells and impair their ability to grow and divide.
We spoke with University of Colorado Anschutz Cancer Center member Brian Kavanagh, MD, MPH, chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, about the treatment and how it works.