• Question: How affective is radiotherapy for cancer patient. Percentage of cells destroyed?

    Asked by kphoskin to Jim, Charlotte, Dhvanil, Frank, Leila on 12 Mar 2013. This question was also asked by rebreb14.
    • Photo: Dhvanil Karia

      Dhvanil Karia answered on 12 Mar 2013:

      Radiotherapy is very effective form of treatment. All the cells in the tumour can be killed but depending on the location and spread of the tumour it will also affect normal tissue around the tumour which limits the effectiveness of the treatment majorly. So there is a balance that needs to be stricken between killing the tumour and sparing the healthy organs

    • Photo: Leila Nichol

      Leila Nichol answered on 12 Mar 2013:

      The aim is to kill all the cancer cells! However, sometimes there are tiny molecular cells which you can’t see, we try and account for this, at the same time trying to keep radiation dose to the rest of the healthy body as low as possible. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where the microscopic tumour spread has gone and this is what can lead to recurrence 1,5, or 10 years down the line.

Comments