Chemo Radiation Treatment

Though the science of medicine continues to develop an ever-increasing number of options for the treatment of cancer, the standard methods of therapy still apply, and can go a long way to treating the disease. One such approach that's maintained its benefits is actually a combination of two forms of treatment: chemotherapy and radiation therapy. In this approach, often referred to as either chemoradiation or chemoradiotherapy, chemicals are used in conjunction with radiation to kill the cancerous cells plaguing a person's body.

Chemoradiation Therapy

• For certain types of cancer, especially in later stages of the disease, your doctor may decide that a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy is the best option. When this approach is used, you're commonly administered both forms of therapies in tandem, so that each enhances the other's effects.

Chemotherapy

• Often starting with a course of chemotherapy, you're given an anticancer drug or a combination of anticancer drugs orally, topically or intravenously, depending on the type, location and size of the cancer. Cisplatin is one of the more common antineoplastic medications, often used when dealing with ovarian, bladder, esophageal, cervical or testicular cancers, but you may be given cyclophosphamide, fluorouracil, capecitabine or another drug to treat lung, breast, colon, rectal, pancreatic or other forms of cancer.

  With cancer, the abnormal cells have the distinct characteristic of dividing at a greater rate than your average healthy cells, prompting the sometimes exponential growth process of a malignant tumor. When chemo drugs are administered, these chemicals impede this rapid division of cancerous cells, which should prevent further growth of the cancer. Over time, you should experience an actual decrease in the size of your tumor, and this cancerous tissue should become much more vulnerable to the effects of radiation therapy.

Radiotherapy

• As you continue to use chemotherapy to shrink the tumor and ultimately weaken the cancerous cells, you often begin the next phase of treatment: radiation therapy, otherwise known as radiotherapy. In this form of treatment, radiation is directed at any "target tissue" affected with the cancerous cells. And much like chemotherapy, this form of treatment is administered in a number of different ways, including external beam radiation therapy, intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) or internal radiation therapy.

  With external beam radiation therapy, you're administered a beam of radiation for a number of consecutive days, sometimes as long as eight weeks, to kill the remaining cancer. With IMRT, a very thin beam of radiation is directed toward "hard-to-reach" tumors to kill the remaining and weakened cancerous cells. And with internal radiation therapy, a number of pellets (about the size of a grain of rice), wires or other radiation devices are inserted under the skin near or even within the cancerous tissue to perform the same tasks as the other forms of radiation.

  What any of these modes of radiation serve to do is actually damage the genetic structure of the cancerous cells. When the genetic structure of the cell is damaged, it prevents the rapid division that is characteristic to cancer to kill any remaining abnormal cells in your system.

  Sometimes, the round of radiation therapy is then followed with yet another course of chemotherapy to rid your body of any remaining cancerous tissue.