Nuclear Oncology

What is Radiotherapy?
Radiotherapy is a treatment based on the application of radiation in the body area you want treated.

Most of the indications of radiation are secondary to cancer, although in certain cases, we can use in benign conditions.

The application of radiotherapy should always be indicated by a medical professional as it involves a number of technical implications and side effects must be evaluated very carefully.

What are the clinical applications of radiation therapy?
The application of radiation therapy can be done in different ways, among them we have external radiation, brachytherapy, and radiosurgery, to give some examples. Then, briefly explained that consist of or how they differ each of these applications.

External radiation
In these cases we proceed to plan the radiation field (or whatever it is, we want to treat the area) based on images from a scanner or TAC. In these cases we do not need surgery or other device for treatment, but based on data from the TAC can design the type of treatment required for that patient. Logically, the amount of radiation will be greatest in the tumor or at risk, and little or none in adjacent organs.

Brachytherapy
For this type of radiotherapy need to introduce the radioactive source within the tumor or surgical bed for it, we will use the surgical excision of the tumor or the patient will have to intervene to implement these sources of radioactivity. The reason for this treatment is to manage a very intense dose of radiation to the tumor or tumor bed area, with little toxicity to provide other adjacent structures.

Radiosurgery
Widely used in brain tumors, particularly metastases from other cancers. In this type of radiotherapy, by CT, is located the point in space where the tumor is treated and, as if it were shot, run a significant amount of radiation to that point without affecting the surrounding areas. This technique is done in one day and requires accurate setting of the patient to not miss the target tumor, so we fix the patient’s head by screws to a metallic structure, logically, with local anesthesia.