What Is Colon Cancer? Every Thing You Need To Know Here

Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy

Treating the colon cancer is hard because the tumor recurs. Radiation therapy employs a high dose of radiation to kill the unwanted malignant cells. In cases of colon cancer, radiation therapy gives good results when paired with chemotherapy. In order to achieve the desired results radiation therapy is conducted in different sessions. Although, not commonly used for colon cancer treatment, but radiation therapy comes in handy under such circumstances.

  • It can be used to decrease the size of the tumor which makes the removal easy during the surgery.
  • After removing the polyp, the doctor kills some healthy cells around the polyp just to be safe that no cancer has been left behind. Radiation therapy can be used for such purpose.
  • If the cancer has reached an advanced stage causing a blockage in the artery, radiation therapy can be used to open blocked and shrink tumors.
  • If the cancer has spread to the nearby organs such as lungs or liver, it can be treated with the help of radiation therapy.
  • If the patient is elderly and cannot tolerate surgical procedure, radiation therapy is used.

External beam radiation therapy:

In this type of radiation, the source of radiation is present outside the body. The radiations in this therapy are more intense than x-rays. 3D-CRT, IMRT, SBRT are the new radiation techniques used these days. With the help of these new technique the doctors can reach more precisely to malignant cells while causing least amount of damage to the healthy cells.

Internal radiation therapy:

The radiation therapy in which the source of radiation is placed inside the body is called internal radiation therapy. A seed like source of radiation is inserted inside the body close to the tumor or inside the tumor, which provides a high dose of radiation for a couple a minutes. This therapy is useful because the radiations don’t have to cross the other muscles and skin tissues and remain confined in a region.

Side effects of radiation therapy:

Even tough, radiation therapy is not invasive, but it has certain side effects

  • Nausea
  • Skin irritation where the beam crosses the body
  • Stool leakage
  • Scarring