radiotherapy

Radiotherapy may be offered as the treatment for some cancers. It may also be offered in combination with chemotherapy and surgery. For example:

• before surgery to reduce the size of a tumour
• after surgery to destroy any remaining cancer cells
• after chemotherapy, to make sure all the cancer cells are destroyed
• in conjunction with chemotherapy

Radiotherapy may also be offered as a palliative treatment if cancer is advanced, to treat symptoms, for example, pain caused by cancer that has spread to the bones.

You may find it useful to have a look at the radiotherapy room of the Virtual Hospital Departments from The Royal College of Radiologists.

Most of the information in the sections listed below is about external beam radiotherapy. This is the most common type of radiotherapy treatment.

In this section, there is information on internal radiotherapy. There is also separate information on total body irradiation (TBI) - a procedure sometimes used before a bone marrow transplant.