External Beam Radiation Therapy

Cancer has become one of the deadliest diseases in the entire world, taking the lives of more than half a million Americans each year. According to statistics by the American Cancer Society and the World Health Organization, the deaths are expected to keep climbing until it reaches 11 million deaths in 2030. However, more treatments are being performed in an attempt to counterattack the disease, and external beam radiation therapy is one of the most effective treatments that are available. It was derived from the use of x-rays and it was widely studied in the early 1900s.

Conventional External Beam

In the late 1800s, a German physicist by the name of Wilhelm Röntgen discovered electromagnetic radiation, while he experimented with numerous vacuum tubes. He continued to experiment with the radiation until he produced the very first x-ray picture on his wife’s hand, which was an enormous breakthrough for the medical community. Others researchers like Marie Curie continued to explore the possible benefits of radiation and that’s how the external beam was eventually designed. The conventional external beam radiation therapy is administered with the help of a piece of equipment that is known as a linear accelerator, which irradiates one beam of radiation onto the affected area. The beam contains high levels of radiation, which are meant to fight off the cancerous cells by shrinking and damaging them.

Stereotactic Radiation

Just like the conventional external beam radiation, this type of therapy makes use of a high energy beam to aim ata well-defined cancerous mass. However, they incorporate the use of imaging scans, which helps them find the exact tumor – this is typically done with the help of neurosurgeons. Within this type of external beam radiation therapy, there are two subtypes of stereotactic treatments, which are:

• SRS – Stereotactic radiosurgery is used only to treat tumors in the brain or in the spine
• SBRT – Stereotactic body radiation therapy is used to treat tumors in any other part of the body

The majority of oncologists agree that this is a preferred method of external beam radiation therapy because it’s considerably accurate, and it covers more area in less time. Since it takes a shorter period of time, patients are less likely to experience any type of side effect in the future.

3D External Beam Radiation

The x-ray and radiation therapy world was improved in the decade of the 1970s, especially with the invention of the CT and the MRI scanners. This was later improved to be used in the external beam radiation therapy for the detection and removal of cancerous tumors. Today, patients can opt for a 3D conformal radiation therapy, which is a different type of external beam radiotherapy treatment. In contrast to the conventional external beam, the 3D radiotherapy is capable of targeting the tumor and releasing one or multiple beams in order to attack the cells. By doing this, this type of radiotherapy is highly effective in releasing more radiation directly onto the affected area in a shorter period of time.