Article
Article
Radiation therapy
Article By:
Recht, Abram Department of Radiation Oncology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts.
Last reviewed:July 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.567225
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- Radiation therapy, published June 2014:Download PDF
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The use of ionizing radiation or radioactive substances to treat disease. The method of radiation therapy is also known as radiotherapy and therapeutic radiology (Fig. 1). Radiotherapy was widely used in the past to treat diseases of the skin, lymph nodes, and other organs. However, because radiation can cause cancer and because alternative treatments for these diseases have been discovered, radiation therapy is mainly limited to treating malignant tumors; in this case, the medical specialty is called radiation oncology. See also: Oncology; Radiology; Tumor
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