Advances in radiation therapy, improvements against cancer
Written by:Radiotherapy treatments have evolved a lot in recent years. Nowadays, technology has allowed us to evolve towards a radiotherapy that greatly reduces the side effects, which offers high percentages of healing and a better quality of life for patients.
In the case of breast cancer , three different types of radiotherapy are used. The first and most common is intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), whose characteristics make the healthy tissues adjacent to the area to be treated more protected. The second method is brachytherapy , which allows the radio to be directly applied to tumor cells. It is a treatment that is carried out through catheters that are inserted under the skin and can directly attack the tumor. The third type of radiation therapy is partial irradiation of the breast , indicated only in tumors that have been diagnosed early.. It allows to face them in a less aggressive way and contributes very good aesthetic results and, what is more important, also a good quality of life. This type of radiotherapy is not universal, but is aimed at patients older than 50 years, with tumors less than 2 centimeters, without positive lymph nodes, with a breast that is not excessively large and that have not undergone chemotherapy techniques.
Radiation therapy in prostate cancer
In addition to treating breast cancer, the IMOR Institute studies other types of cancers. While the most frequent in women is breast cancer, men tend to be prostate cancer. In the latter case, we apply radio of moderate intensity and branchytherapy, with which we obtain 98% of cures without side effects such as urinary incontinence or erectile dysfunction. However, we also apply radiotherapy in cases of colon and rectal cancer, in gynecological tumors, lung cancer, intracerebral tumors, among others.
Looking ahead, our intention is to continue betting on the latest technological developments and make them available to our patients, as we have done since IMO opened its doors in the year 2000. We will also continue to collaborate with the creation of a culture of cancer prevention. In the case of the breast, detecting a tumor early allows us to obtain a higher success rate with radiotherapy, so it is not advisable to lower your guard.
