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Summary

Radiation therapy is a cancer treatment. It uses high doses of radiation to kill cancer cells and stop them from spreading. About half of all cancer patients receive it. The radiation may be external, from special machines, or internal, from radioactive substances that a doctor places inside your body. The type of radiation therapy you receive depends on many factors, including:

• The type of cancer
• The size of the cancer
• The cancer's location in the body
• How close the cancer is to normal tissues that are sensitive to radiation
• How far into the body the radiation needs to travel
• Your general health and medical history
• Whether you will have other types of cancer treatment
• Other factors, such as your age and other medical conditions

Radiation therapy can damage normal cells as well as cancer cells. Treatment must be carefully planned to minimize side effects. Common side effects include skin changes and fatigue. Other side effects depend on the part of your body being treated.

Sometimes radiation is used with other treatments, like surgery or chemotherapy.

NIH: National Cancer Institute

Start Here

• How Radiation Therapy Is Used to Treat Cancer (American Cancer Society) Also in Spanish
• Radiation Therapy and You: Support for People with Cancer (National Cancer Institute) Also in Spanish
• Radiation Therapy to Treat Cancer (National Cancer Institute)

Related Issues

• Low Blood Cell Counts: Side Effects of Cancer Treatment (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research) Also in Spanish
• Oral Complications of Chemotherapy and Head/Neck Radiation (National Cancer Institute) Also in Spanish
• Radiation Therapy Side Effects (American Cancer Society) Also in Spanish

Specifics

• Brachytherapy (American College of Radiology; Radiological Society of North America) Also in Spanish
• Gamma Knife (American College of Radiology; Radiological Society of North America) Also in Spanish
• Proton Therapy (American College of Radiology; Radiological Society of North America)
• Radioimmunotherapy (RIT) (American College of Radiology; Radiological Society of North America) Also in Spanish
• Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) and Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy (SBRT) (American College of Radiology; Radiological Society of North America)

Clinical Trials

• ClinicalTrials.gov: Radiotherapy (National Institutes of Health)

Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

• Article: A bibliometrics analysis based on the application of artificial intelligence in...
• Article: Molecular biological mechanisms of radiotherapy-induced skin injury occurrence and treatment.
• Article: Global research trends on the links between gut microbiota and radiotherapy:...
• Radiation Therapy -- see more articles

Find an Expert

• American Cancer Society
• American College of Radiology Accredited Facility Search (American College of Radiology)
• National Cancer Institute Also in Spanish
• RadiologyInfo (American College of Radiology; Radiological Society of North America) Also in Spanish

Teenagers

• Radiation Therapy (Nemours Foundation)

Patient Handouts

• Oral mucositis - self-care (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Radiation enteritis (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Radiation therapy (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Radiation therapy - skin care (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish