We hate cancer, and so Living808 joined the Cancer Center of Hawaii to help you learn more about the battle against cancer. It is a war that we are winning, and medical technology has made huge advances within the last 5 years.
Radiation is one of the three ways to treat cancer patients. The other two are surgery and chemotherapy, which most people are more familiar with. Many know that chemotherapy is medicine that goes to all the cells in your body, while surgery is focused on one area. Radiation is more similar to surgery, except that while a surgeon makes a physical opening to see and remove a tumor, doctors see a tumor with pictures such as CT scans and design radiation to treat just that area. So the side effects from treatment will mostly be just in that area too.
