Radiation oncology is the branch of medicine dealing with tumors. The medical specialists who work in this field may diagnose, counsel, prescribe, perform tests and treat patients with tumors, whether they’re cancerous or benign. Radiation therapy is one technique used to treat cancerous tumors and drain affected lymph nodes to prevent malignant spread. To avoid damaging perfectly healthy tissue, several radiation beams from different angles are sent to intersect at the tumor, which leads to a larger dose within the tumor itself only.

Radiation oncology works by damaging the cells’ genetic material that controls replication. The goal of this therapy is to injure as few healthy cells as possible. At least half of all cancer patients receive some form of radiation therapy. Sometimes it’s used as the primary means of eradicating cancer. In what is called “neoadjuvant therapy,” a cancerous tumor is shrunk to make surgery more successful. In “adjuvant therapy,” remaining cancer cells are targeted after a large growth has been removed during surgery. Often this treatment is used with chemotherapy to destroy additional cancer cells and minimize side effects, or in terminal patients, to provide some asymptomatic relief.

The success of radiation oncology depends upon the size of the tumor and the type of cancer. For example, there are highly radiosensitive cancer cells — like leukemia, lymphomas and germ cell tumors. So if lymphoma is found in one localized area, there is a good probability the cancer can be eradicated. On the other hand, some tumors are radio-resistant, such as renal cell cancer, melanoma and metastatic cancers that have spread throughout the whole body. While radiotherapy may be prescribed along with another treatment, the medical problem cannot be helped by radiation alone.

Medicare and Medicaid cuts are a current problem facing those working in radiation oncology. “Asking a sick patient to drive 2-3 hours to reach a cancer center, have a treatment and then drive another 2-3 hours to get back home was just unacceptable. [So] we expanded… to include 5 community treatment centers,” explains Dr. Ronald Dorn, a radiation oncologist at the Mountain States Tumor Institute in Idaho. “I am afraid that the cuts being proposed by Medicare will force us to close some of the community based outlying clinics.” The operating costs and the power bills are exorbitant in this field, he says. The proposed budget cuts will inevitably send cancer patients driving several hours across the state to get their radiation therapy, if they can pay for it at all.

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