Radiation Oncology
Radiation Oncology
What Is Radiation Oncology?
If you have cancer, you might see a doctor who specializes in radiation oncology. It’s an area of medicine that uses “radiation therapy” — a treatment that focuses high-energy waves on your body to kill cancer cells.
Your doctor will decide if it’s right for you based on the type and stage of your cancer, plus other health conditions you have.
How Radiation Therapy Works
Radiation therapy damages the genetic material of cancer cells to kill them or slow their growth. More than half of people with cancer get it.
Your doctor may suggest one of these types of radiation therapy:
External beam radiation therapy. A machine outside your body aims radiation where your cancer is. The device can move around you to point the radiation at a precise part of your body from different directions. It won’t touch you.
You get external beam radiation therapy at a hospital or treatment center over many weeks. It doesn’t make you radioactive, so it’s safe for people to be around you.
Internal radiation therapy. Your doctor puts a solid or liquid radiation source inside your body.
Your doctor may suggest a type of internal radiation therapy called “brachytherapy.” In this procedure, the radiation source is in a capsule or other implant item. Doctors often use an applicator or a slim, stretchy catheter tube to put the implant in or near your cancer. The radiation source may stay inside your body for just a few minutes, several days, or longer.
You may also hear your doctor talk about another kind of internal radiation therapy called “systemic radiation.” You take liquid radiation through your mouth or a vein. The radiation moves through your body to find and destroy cancer cells.
Internal radiation therapy might make your body give off radiation. You may have to follow safety guidelines, depending on your dose.
Types of Cancer It Treats
External beam radiation therapy can treat many cancers, including breast, colorectal, esophageal, head, neck, lung, and prostate cancer.
Brachytherapy is used for some of the same cancers that external beam radiation therapy can treat. Examples are head, neck, breast, and prostate cancers. Brachytherapy often also works for cervix and eye cancers.
A type of systemic radiation therapy called radioactive iodine (I-131) can treat some thyroid cancers.
Targeted radionuclide therapy, another type of systemic radiation therapy, can treat advanced prostate cancer or gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs).
How DaVitis arranges your treatment
If you have any medical records , like copies of imaging tests (like MRIs, CT scans, and X-rays) we ask you to send them to us via internet. A list of all the medications you take could help, too. A detailed story of you and your close family is required to be written to us. After we have all we need from you we translate these medical records in Turkish/English and prepare your personal file in order to present it to the best Oncologist doctors who work in the best hospitals in Turkey . After we speak with several centers about your case we inform you about the choices we can offer to you. If you desire we arrange online video consultations with the Turkish specialists and live interpreting is provided by us as well. Understanding that usually this kind of diseases are very confusing and put lots of stress on you or your family we do whatever we can in order to make it as easy for you to decide about your next step.