Radiation therapy, also known as radiation therapy, is a common oncologic treatment modality utilising ionising radiation to control or eliminate malignant cells. Radiation therapy plays a role in primary curative treatment (e.g. head and neck cancer), adjuvant therapy (e.g. reducing recurrence rate after local breast cancer surgery), and palliation of cancer symptoms (e.g. reducing pain from bone metastases). Radiation therapy may be used alone or synergistically with chemotherapy or immunotherapy, e.g. "chemoradiation therapy."
Radiation therapy is also, less commonly, used to treat non-malignant diseases, e.g. Graves thyroiditis, keloid scarring, etc.
Terminology
Radiation therapy is commonly abbreviated to RT, RTx, DXT (deep x-ray therapy) and XRT (x-ray therapy) in medical records.
Techniques
Radiation therapy is customarily divided into three main categories:
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external beam radiation therapy (EBRT): a medical linear accelerator (linac) directs ionising radiation at the tumour from outside the body
sealed source radiation therapy (brachytherapy) where a radiation source(s) is placed inside or next to the tissue requiring treatment
unsealed source radiation therapy (systemic radioisotope therapy) where a radioisotope is delivered through infusion (e.g. Lu-177-DOTATATE for neuroendocrine tumours) or ingestion (e.g. I-131 for thyroid cancer)
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