Cancer Radiotherapy	Ch 8
Ch...1 : General History Ch...2 : Prevention Ch...3 : Screening Ch...4 : Diagnosis Ch...5 : Tumor markers Ch...6 : Classification Ch...7 : Surgery Select a chapter Ch...9 : Chemotherapy Ch.10 : Hormonotherapy Ch.11 : New treatments Ch.12 : Multidisciplinarity Ch.13 : Psychology Ch.14 : Follow-up Ch.15 : Palliative care Ch.16 : Emergencies		Page 1 / 25

Historically, radiotherapy is the second method for treating cancer through ionising radiation.

In an appendix, we describe the main stages of the history of this therapy.

We can distinguish;

• External radiotherapy, where the irradiation source is situated outside the patient (RX devices, cobalt, accelerators),

• Brachytherapy where the radioactive sources are situated inside the patient:

• by sealed sources

- intersticial brachytherapy : the sources are placed inside the tumour

- endocavitary brachytherapy : the sources are inside natural cavities where tumours develop

• non sealed brachytherapy :

  - radioactive compounds are injected into the patient for particular tumours : I ¹³¹, P³², St¹⁸⁹, ..

In France, radiotherapy is used for the treatment of one out of two cancer patients. Half of the patients who are cured of their cancer, are treated by radiotherapy

Physical bases of radiotherapy

Radiobiology Notions

Treatment parameters

Main devices used in external radiotherapy

Goals and results of radiotherapy

Technical realisation of treatment

Treatment supervision and acute side effects

Late side effects

Therapeutic associations

Brachytherapy Notions

Other particles used in radiotherapy

This chapter has been written with the kind collaboration of Dr Bernard Géry, radiotherapy oncologist at the Centre François Baclesse.