Radiation therapy
Therapy using ionizing radiation, usually to treat cancer
Radiation therapy or radiotherapy is a treatment using ionizing radiation, generally provided as part of cancer therapy to either kill or control the growth of malignant cells. It is normally delivered by a linear particle accelerator. Radiation therapy may be curative in a number of types of cancer if they are localized to one area of the body, and have not spread to other parts. It may also be used as part of adjuvant therapy, to prevent tumor recurrence after surgery to remove a primary malignant tumor. Radiation therapy is synergistic with chemotherapy, and has been used before, during, and after chemotherapy in susceptible cancers. The subspecialty of oncology concerned with radiotherapy is called radiation oncology. A physician who practices in this subspecialty is a radiation oncologist and practicing radiographer are therapeutic radiographer.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Radiation therapy” as therapy using ionizing radiation, usually to treat cancer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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This entry incorporates text from “Radiation therapy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.