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Definition
By Mayo Clinic staff
Radiation therapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses beams of high-energy X-rays or particles to kill cancer cells. Radiation therapy is also called radiotherapy or X-ray therapy.
The term "radiation therapy" most often refers to external beam radiation therapy. During this type of radiation, the high-energy beams come from a machine outside of your body that aims the beams at a precise point on your body.
Radiation therapy damages cells by destroying the genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide. And while both healthy and cancerous cells are damaged by radiation therapy, the goal of radiation therapy is to destroy as few normal, healthy cells as possible.
- Radiation therapy and you: Support for people with cancer. National Cancer Institute. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/radiation-therapy-and-you/allpages. Accessed May 4, 2009.
- External beam therapy (EBT). Radiology Info. http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=ebt. Accessed May 4, 2009.
- Part II: Radiation therapy - Your personal experience. Cancer.Net. http://www.cancer.net/patient/Library/Cancer.Net+Features/Treatments%2C+Tests%2C+and+Procedures/Part+II%3A+Radiation+Therapy%26mdash%3BYour+Personal+Experience. Accessed May 4, 2009.
- What to expect. RT Answers. http://www.rtanswers.org/treatment/what_to_expect.htm. Accessed May 4, 2009.
