Radiation therapy is a form of cancer treatment which uses high-energy X-rays to target rapidly dividing cancer cells of a patient's body, ultimately, tearing apart the cells' genetic material and making them incapable of further growth. While radiation therapy does not necessarily remove a cancer tumor from a person, the energy destroys enough cancerous cells to prevent a cancer from spreading, or to shrink a tumor enough to have it removed through surgery.

History of Radiation Therapy

The beginnings of radiation therapy can be traced back hundreds of years, as far back as 1895, when a German physicist by the name of Wilhelm Rontgen first discovered X-rays. Just weeks after this initial groundbreaking finding, Rontgen became the first person in the world to actually produce an X-ray image. Around this very time, a young Polish woman living in France, Marie Curie, was busy furthering her own contribution to the history of radiotherapy. Specifically, both she and her husband, Pierre, discovered the elements radium and polonium while testing various properties of radioactivity. Marie would also go on to study the impact that radiation had on living cells, and by the early 1900s, with the help of her daughter, Irene, she was already creating early forms of X-ray machines that helped treat wounded WWI soldiers. Furthermore, Marie Curie used early cell studies that showed radioactive energy had the potential to destroy damaged tissues of the body to help test some of the first radiation therapy methods. Through the transfer of certain radioactive gases into a disease-ridden body, a potentially-deadly disease, she found, could actually be cured.

Radiation as a medical treatment was not only limited to Curie, however. The first documented cases of radiation use for tumors and other malignancies were recorded as early as 1896, just mere months after Rontgen's monumental unearthed the existence of x-rays as part of the electromagnetic spectrum. As the new century began, such research in radiation treatments only progressed, with certain doctors even testing out early internal radiation therapy methods. The treatment even further advanced in the late 1940s, when it was found that artificial radiation, created from machines known as linear accelerators, could be life-saving for certain cancer victims. This clearly came to light in 1956, when a two year old boy afflicted with eye cancer become the first person to undergo a radiation therapy procedure using a linear accelerator; the tumor was successfully minimized, and the boy's life and eyesight were both spared.

Types of Radiation Therapy

The forms of radiation therapy have always include two primary classifications: that which is administered through an external source, or external radiation therapy, and that which is administered through a source placed on, or inside, of the body, or internal radiation therapy. The latter type can further be grouped into systemic radiation, which implies that radioactive substances are administered through either a pill, liquid, or IV into a patient's body, or brachytherapy, which requires a  radioactive "plaque" to be placed on or inside of a tumor for a predetermined period of time.

External radiation therapy, on the other hand, mainly includes the following groupings: three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy, or 3D-CRT, intensity modulated radiation therapy, or IMRT, the most advanced type of 3-D radiation, stereotactic radiation therapy and radiosurgery, both special forms of IMRT treatment, and conformal proton beam radiation therapy, which uses proton beams instead of x-rays. All of these external sources of radiation work in the same general manner, by having complex computers and imaging tests first map a tumor, and then configuring precise doses and angles of radiation beams. Essentially, these beams are molded around a tumor, so both the treatment has the most effectiveness and harm to adjacent tissue is minimized.

Dangers of Radiation Therapy

Even in the earliest research performed with radiation, it was clear that certain side-effects resulted from the exposure to the energy. When Thomas Edison started studying certain forms of radioactive energy in the late 1800s, for instance, he quickly recorded a discomfort of the eyes. As his studies progressed (eventually leading to the development of the fluoroscope) one of his assistants, Clarence Dally, became gravely ill after both of his arms started to forms cancers. Both arms were eventually amputated. When Marie Curie died in 1935, her cause of death was determined as anemia, which doctors now know is a common-side effect of radiation therapy as well. The connection is clear: prolonged radiation exposure can cause serious, and often fatal, long-term effects. Such effects can include a slowed rate of growth and development, learning disabilities, lowered/loss of fertility, or an increased risk of second-cancer formation.

Short-term effects, on the other, predominantly include fatigue and skin changes around a "target area," such as skin sensitivity, redness, and possible blistering. Other changes to the body usually depend on where radiation therapy is specifically administered. If a person has a cancer in the neck region, for instance, swelling of the esophagus, and trouble swallowing may occur. If radiation is delivered to the abdomen area of a cancer patient, gastrointestinal problems, like diarrhea, are fairly common. For cancers which affect the head, like that of the brain or eye, hair loss will often result. Every patient will ultimately respond to treatment differently, though.

Other dangers of radiation therapy are somewhat more obscure, but also fairly synonymous with treatments that involve such precision and high-energy. The chance that a malfunction of a radiation machine will occur is not unheard of, after all. There have indeed been extreme accidental overexposure cases throughout the history of radiation therapy, some which happened just mere decades ago. Wrong dose calculations and issues with engineering are fairly rare, but as goes for all medical procedures, there is definitely risk involved.

High Costs of Radiation Therapy

Most risks attributed to radiation therapy areoften far outweighed by the hope of survival that the treatment gives. Radiation therapy is one of the most commonly used forms of cancer treatment, and over half of all patients will use some form of it throughout their healing period due to its proven effectiveness. That does not mean, however, that that effectiveness comes cheap. In fact, the price of saving a patient's life with radiation often costs hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a few years. For radiation therapy specifically, costs are usually high because of both the complex machinery used to administer the radiation, and also because the time of highly-trained radiation teams--sometimes, anywhere up to six specialists--cost money. While the price of treatment will vary from state to state and from patient to patient, an average radiation therapy treatment will run about $20,000; this is based on a treatment plan that delivers radiation multiple times a week for multiple weeks. Sometimes, if more advanced methods are used, estimated costs can be mind-boggling.

While some will argue that the costs of cancer treatment, like radiation therapy, are far too high--the installation of a proton beam radiation therapy facility, for instance, costs over 160 billion dollars--a large part of the pricing, once again, goes toward paying the multiple men and women who take care of cancer patients throughout their treatment. Whether that means primary oncologists and nurses, or one of many specially trained radiation therapists, there is no job shortage when it comes to assuring that the best possible radiation treatment plan is configured and delivered. Those interested in working in the oncology field, radiation therapy in particular, must go to schools with special programs that educate students in both traditional and more recent treatment procedures. In the end, the people behind the treatment play one of the most integral parts of radiation therapy.

Whether cancer patients will undergo radiation therapy throughout their lifetime will primarily depend on what specific type of cancer has affected them, their overall health, and whether other treatments can be used to ward off the cancer. New developments are constantly being brought to the forefront of radiation research, and if the recent progression of machines and methods is any indication of hope, even more forms of better and faster treatments are bound to surface.