Radiation oncology (radiotherapy/radiation therapy) is a speciality that is an essential part of our multidisciplinary approach to cancer treatment. For cancer treatment, radiation uses high-energy x-rays (photons) which are painless and invisible and are used as part of treatment for different cancers.
These x-rays are most commonly channelized through a Linear Accelerator. Our radiation oncology team will talk to you about radiation therapy as a treatment option, assess you, plan and deliver your treatment as well as help you with any side effects that you are likely to experience.
Due to the time required to plan this highly specialised treatment, there may be a slight delay in the start of your treatment.
Your team will talk to you when the treatment begins. This time is being used to customise the treatment to your needs and make sure it is delivered safely, properly, and with very few adverse effects.
The specialist will carry on caring for you after the completion of your treatment.
Treatment objectives can vary depending on cancer to cure you of cancer, to regulate the proliferation of cancer or to reduce the symptoms of cancer such as pain. Radiation therapy is a part of treatment in around 40% of all patients cured of cancer.
It has been observed that about 50% cancer patients have benefited from radiation therapy as part of their overall cancer treatment. This means that 1 in every 2 patients with cancer may benefit from radiation therapy at some point during their illness.
Being a highly affordable cancer treatment, investing on enhancing radiation oncology procedures and facilitating cancer patients’ access to radiation therapy by constructing new treatment facilities is now viewed as being of significant value.
The sophisticated technology and treatment techniques used in radiation oncology are constantly improving. The recent advances have benefited many patients with cancer, and the indices like higher cure rates, fewer undesirable effects and faster treatment times with a reduced number of treatments etc are our advantages.
The new technology provides motion management systems and tumour tracking ability which precisely targets radiation beams to cancer and at the same time limits damage to important adjacent organs enhancing success rates.
