Radiation Oncology
Radiation oncology (also sometimes called radiation therapy) involves the treatment of cancer tumors with ionized radiation. Sometimes this field of medicine is confused with radiology, which is the use of radiation in diagnosis with medical imaging scans. Radiotherapy may be used to cure cancer, to provide symptomatic relief when the cancer cannot be treated and to work with other treatments to improve the quality of life. “Total body irradiation” is a technique used to prepare patients for bone marrow transplants. Sometimes radiation is used to treat neuropathic nerve disorders, eye diseases and non-cancerous growths. Radiation has been known to prevent keloid scar growth and heterotopic ossification, which is why it’s often used alongside other methods of tumor removal treatment.
While radiation oncology professionals say that radiology oncology is safe, there are possible side effects. Skin reactions similar to sunburn are common, as is fatigue and weakness. Hair loss may occur in the area being treated but will usually grow back following the treatment. Some people report discomfort while swallowing, nausea, diarrhea and ulceration of the mucus membrane. While receiving this therapy, white blood cell counts decrease, which makes a patient more susceptible to infection. Often the side effects resolve themselves within a few months of finishing treatment.
The success of radiation oncology depends upon the size of the tumor and the type of cancer. For example, there are highly radiosensitive cancer cells — like leukemia, lymphomas and germ cell tumors. So if lymphoma is found in one localized area, there is a good probability the cancer can be eradicated. On the other hand, some tumors are radio-resistant, such as renal cell cancer, melanoma and metastatic cancers that have spread throughout the whole body. While radiotherapy may be prescribed along with another treatment, the medical problem cannot be helped by radiation alone.
Medicare and Medicaid cuts are a current problem facing those working in radiation oncology. “Asking a sick patient to drive 2-3 hours to reach a cancer center, have a treatment and then drive another 2-3 hours to get back home was just unacceptable. [So] we expanded… to include 5 community treatment centers,” explains Dr. Ronald Dorn, a radiation oncologist at the Mountain States Tumor Institute in Idaho. “I am afraid that the cuts being proposed by Medicare will force us to close some of the community based outlying clinics.” The operating costs and the power bills are exorbitant in this field, he says. The proposed budget cuts will inevitably send cancer patients driving several hours across the state to get their radiation therapy, if they can pay for it at all.
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