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Radiation therapy can cure cancer in many cases, it involves the use of external X-rays, or electron beams to kill or shrink cancer tumour cells and/or to stop them from growing and reproducing. When a person is diagnosed with cancer, his or her life is literally turned inside out.

Suddenly, the daily 'To Do' list is usurped by medical tests and consultations with specialists, late nights researching their particular cancer, hours and days of worry, and the need to make critical decisions about treatment.

Add to this the immediate impact on children, family and friends, career, and it's no wonder a person feels overwhelmed.

Many Canadians are unfamiliar with the value of radiation therapy in curing cancer. Likewise, many primary care physicians receive no, or minimal, teaching on radiation therapy for cancer in medical school.

Today, 50 per cent of cancer patients will benefit from this form of painless treatment; however, in many Canadian regions only 33 per cent are receiving it.

A person newly diagnosed with cancer needs to ask early for a review of her case by a radiation oncologist to ensure that all the most beneficial treatment opportunities are considered.

The Canadian Association of Radiation Oncology (CARO) is poised to hold its national Annual Scientific Meeting in Vancouver from Sept. 22 to 25. The radiation oncology physicians, medical physicists, radiation therapists, electronic engineers, scientists and researchers attending will share the newest trends and most recent developments leading to continually improving outcomes for our patients.

Used alone, radiation therapy can cure cancer in many cases. It involves the use of external X-rays, or electron beams to kill or shrink cancer tumour cells and/or to stop them from growing and reproducing.

It is the primary treatment for various skin cancers, cancers of the mouth, nasal cavity, pharynx (throat) and larynx (voice box), brain tumours, many gynecological cancers, as well as lung and prostate cancers.

Radiation therapy also is used in combination with other treatments such as surgery and chemotherapy for breast, bowel, gynecologic, lung, testicular, childhood, and bladder cancers, as well as lymphomas like Hodgkins disease and many others.

This safe, non-intrusive, effective treatment also is used to relieve cancer patients' pain resulting from the spread of cancer into their bones; to slow or stop bleeding at tumour sites in the body; and to alleviate blockages that interfere with patients' breathing or swallowing.

With the advent of the use of brachytherapy, an internal form of radiation therapy involving the placement of special seeds (radioactive isotopes) into or close to the tumour, many more options for shorter and equally effective treatment programs are becoming available.

There are a number of myths and assumptions made about this cancer treatment that need to be addressed.

First, patients who receive external radiation therapy are never radioactive.

Second, patients who receive internal treatments may remain radioactive for a short period of time, but only if the seeds have been placed and not removed (usually with prostate cancer). If the applicator or seeds are removed, then patients are not radioactive.

If they are kept in place, the radiation level decreases quickly and completely over a few months. During this period, patients need to avoid very close or intimate contact with loved ones, but only for a short period of time.

Radiation therapy is not painful. Most patients feel nothing when the machine is delivering the daily treatment.

Radiation therapy does not cause you to lose all your hair (unless directed near the scalp).

Dr. Matthew Parliament is a radiation oncologist at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, and President of the Canadian Association of Radiation Oncology.

Source: The Vancouver Sun