Radiation treatment can sound intimidating if you don’t know what to expect. External beam radiation, the most common type used in cancer treatment, takes just a few minutes per session. During that time, a machine called a linear accelerator aims a beam of high-energy X-rays at cancer tumors. The beam damages the DNA of cancer cells, killing them while leaving healthy tissues intact.
The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship says you are a cancer survivor from your day of diagnosis through the rest of your life. Not everyone identifies personally with the term “survivor,” but the concept of survivorship is far-ranging and inclusive.ple with neither habit.
More than 20 years ago, Dr. Norman Anderson at the Robert Boisonneault Oncology Institute successfully treated a man whose metastatic melanoma had produced 23 brain lesions.
Smoking (including secondhand smoke and smokeless tobacco, sometimes called “chewing tobacco” or “snuff”) is the number one risk factor for getting head and neck cancer. People who use both tobacco and alcohol are many times more likely to get head and neck cancer than people with neither habit.
Cancer treatments like surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation involve travel to facilities. But what we do at home can amplify treatment’s benefits and decrease its side effects.