Lung Cancer Treatments &ndash: Radiation Therapy
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Radiation Therapy for Lung Cancer
The lung cancer team at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) provides a range of radiation therapy options to treat all types of lung cancer. Radiation therapy uses high-powered energy to destroy cancer cells, shrink tumors, and provide relief of common lung cancer symptoms.
Typical radiation therapy can be damaging to the lungs. In some cases, it may even make breathing worse than it was before. Our radiation oncologists use advanced radiation therapies, like TomoTherapy® and HDR Brachytherapy, to precisely target tumors and minimize damage to healthy lung tissue and nearby organs, like the heart. We also use radioprotective drugs to help protect healthy tissue from exposure to radiation.
Depending on your lung cancer, your CTCA care team will combine radiation therapy with surgery, chemotherapy and Interventional Pulmonology treatments.
Radiation therapy may be included in your individualize lung cancer treatment plan as:
- A primary treatment.
- Before surgery to shrink a tumor.
- After surgery to eliminate any remaining cancer cells.
- To treat cancer that has spread to other areas of the body.
We offer two primary types of radiation therapy for the treatment of lung cancer:
- External Beam Radiation Therapy (EBRT): Delivers high doses of radiation to lung cancer cells from outside the body, using a variety of machine-based technologies.
- High Dose Rate (HDR) Brachytherapy (Internal Radiation): Delivers high doses of radiation from implants placed close to, or inside, the tumor(s) in the body.
Next Topic: External Beam Radiation Therapy (EBRT) for Lung Cancer
