Can radiation therapy cure cancer?

"Hey, it's good to go home to recuperate, there is no better medical treatment at the moment, so have a good time", the doctor comforted.

Sister Li, who is over 40 years old, has finally entered management and become a partner in the company, but her poor lifestyle has seriously damaged her body, and she feels uncomfortable from time to time due to various minor ailments in her middle-age.

This day, Sister Li went for regular medical checkups, and to her surprise, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer after some examinations, which made her devastated. The doctor advised Li to actively treat the disease, and it would be better to arrange radiotherapy as soon as possible, but Li, whose career had just taken off, could not let go of her career and had difficulty facing the consequences of cervical cancer and radiotherapy, so she avoided it.

Sister Li thought that even without radiotherapy, it would not be a big deal, and it would be too late to think about it after a year and a half when her career was stable, but she did not expect her condition to develop too fast. Sometime later, she passed away because her condition deteriorated again.

I. Do many patients die after a period of radiotherapy because of over-treatment?

Cancer itself is a systemic and complex disease, and it will be affected by multiple and variable factors. Over-treatment certainly may increase the risk of death of patients, but it is only one of the reasons. Generally speaking, 3 main types of overtreatment may occur in clinical practice.

Firstly, when surgically removing the tumor, to be "clean" (to avoid residual cancer cells), the surrounding healthy tissues are excessively damaged and removed; secondly, there is a lack of understanding of chemotherapy, mistakenly believing that the higher the dose and frequency of chemotherapy is the bearer, but this increases the damage to healthy cells; thirdly, there is a lack of understanding of radiotherapy, and the excessive dose and frequency cause damage to normal cells of the body. Third, the lack of understanding of radiotherapy and the damage caused by excessive doses and frequency to the normal cells of the body.

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are indeed effective treatments for tumor cells, but due to the lack of ability to distinguish between cancer cells and normal cells, chemotherapy and radiotherapy can cause damage to both cancer cells and normal cells.

In the treatment process, the dose and frequency of chemotherapy and radiotherapy need to be strictly controlled. Because of this, cancer treatment has now become a specialized discipline in the medical field.

The risk of death of cancer patients during the regular treatment stage itself can be affected by the disease and is indeed related to overtreatment, but there are other factors as well.

The first is cancer diagnosis and disease staging. Currently, the early screening rate of cancer in China is not high, and many patients are themselves in the middle and late stages when diagnosed, making treatment difficult.

Secondly, the enthusiasm for treatment. Many patients are beaten and tormented by cancer, so their enthusiasm for treatment is not high, and the patients do not cooperate, and the effect of treatment is extremely limited.

Lastly, side effects and negative psychology. The side effects brought by chemotherapy and radiotherapy can also hurt patients, and once the expected effect is not achieved, some patients will give up the treatment, leading to accelerated deterioration of the disease and eventually death.

Besides, the risk of death of cancer patients is also related to patients' physical quality, dietary habits, work and rest patterns, bad emotions, and psychological problems, etc. Therefore, it cannot be attributed to the responsibility of a single factor.

Many people refuse radiotherapy mainly because of these 3 aspects

After cancer diagnosis, many patients can face surgery and chemotherapy openly, but they are very resistant to radiotherapy, which has 3 main reasons.

1. Lack of sufficient understanding of radiotherapy

Many people know that surgery is to remove the lesion, and chemotherapy is to take medicine, but radiotherapy is confusing, and the fear of the unknown will make patients think about it, and when they see the side effects of other patients, they are naturally afraid.

Radiotherapy refers to the treatment process of removing tumor cells through radiation (light) by doctors using different equipment, there is internal and external irradiation.

There are 3 main stages of radiotherapy treatment: First, radiotherapy assessment, which involves collecting all aspects of the patient's examination data for comprehensive indication assessment, and only if the patient is eligible for radiotherapy will the doctor make recommendations to the patient.

Second, the development of treatment plans, radiotherapy is not just done, according to the overall situation of the patient, the treatment process involves a detailed design and adjustment of the tools, and the process, takes about 10 days to prepare; third, the treatment, generally a few minutes to a few minutes are possible, depending on the patient's condition and treatment plan.

2, there are many misconceptions about radiotherapy

Less than one-third of domestic cancer patients receive regular radiotherapy. This may be caused by the misunderstanding of radiotherapy among the public. Some people think that the radiation exposure of radiotherapy rays is too high and will not cause cancer.

Formal radiotherapy is professionally designed and there is no risk of cancer. Although radiotherapy may cause certain damage to the human body, under regular treatment, the damage is within the controllable range, and the benefits of treatment and body damage outweigh the disadvantages.

3、Fear of side effects

Radiotherapy does bring some side effects to patients, but in regular radiotherapy, the side effects have reached a controllable stage, and there are sufficient medical solutions for these side effects so that patients can have no worries.

Skin damage: Some patients may have skin redness, swelling, itching, erosion, and peeling in the armpit, neck, and groin after radiotherapy. When treating, pay attention to self-protection and use talcum powder to disinfect and dry after treatment, or apply 0.2% ice starch to relieve. However, if there are signs of ulceration or infection, tell the doctor in time.

Nausea and vomiting: It may be related to intracranial hypertension, gastrointestinal mucous membrane damage or gastrointestinal dysfunction, etc. You can eat some appetizing food or vitamin B6 and appetizer tablets, take more rest, avoid stimulating food in your diet, and eat less and more meals.

Fever: caused by tissue damage caused by radiotherapy, fever within 38 degrees Celsius, drinking more water and sweat, above 38 degrees Celsius, considering the complexity of cancer treatment, you must consult a doctor before considering taking antipyretic drugs, or even consider intravenous infusion and antibiotics, adrenal corticosteroids, etc., do not use without authorization.

Hair loss: If the head is irradiated during radiotherapy, it may cause hair loss, which is generally a temporary symptom and will recover on its own after treatment, but you should pay attention to self-protection and not use too much force when combing hair.

III. Can radiotherapy cure cancer or not?

A medical survey found that 70% of cancers need radiotherapy in the treatment stage, and 40% of them can be cured by radiotherapy.

Lin Qing, director of the Department of Radiotherapy of Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, introduced: the report published by the World Health Organization in 2013 and pointed out that the current medical technology can cure 67% of cancers, of which the role of surgery accounts for 30%, chemotherapy for 7% and radiotherapy also accounts for 30%.

Radiotherapy has a very high cure rate in the treatment of some early cancers, for example, the early cure rate of cervical cancer can reach 90%, the 5-year cure rate of nasopharyngeal cancer can also be as large as 80-90%, and the early stage of lung cancer can achieve the same effect of surgical resection through radiotherapy, and even advanced patients can relieve more than 80% of pain symptoms.

At present, clinically, radiotherapy is used for patients with esophageal cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, glioma, rectal cancer, breast cancer, gallbladder cancer, cervical cancer, metastatic tumors, lymphoma, prostate cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer, obstruction treatment, advanced cancer pain and so on as long as they meet the conditions of radiotherapy, especially for people with multiple comorbidities, old and frail, and those who resist surgery. However, the specific suitability of radiotherapy still needs to be judged after a close examination of physical data and disease conditions.

Cancer brings a great shadow on people, and many people, because of the fear of cancer, keep avoiding it but miss the opportunity of treatment there are positive and effective initiatives for cancer in medicine now. We hope that people can learn more about cancer treatment from formal channels and build up strong confidence in fighting cancer.