Doctors use a variety of sophisticated methods to limit collateral tissue damage during therapy, aiming to treat disease effectively while preserving as much healthy tissue as possible. These strategies are especially critical in treatments like radiation therapy, surgery, and certain…
Salivary glands are often damaged in thyroid cancer patients primarily because of the treatments used to manage the cancer, especially radioactive iodine therapy. This therapy, while effective at targeting thyroid cancer cells, can inadvertently affect the salivary glands due to…
Radiation therapy, while a crucial tool in treating various cancers, especially those located in or near the chest such as breast cancer and lung cancer, can indeed cause damage to the heart and lungs. This damage arises because radiation does…
Radiation damage in tissue can be both immediate and delayed, depending on the type of tissue, the dose of radiation, and the biological processes involved. When tissues are exposed to ionizing radiation, some effects occur very quickly—within minutes or hours—while…
Patients sometimes get burns from radiation therapy because the treatment, while targeting cancer cells, also affects normal skin and underlying tissues in the treated area. Radiation therapy uses high-energy rays or particles to destroy cancer cells by damaging their DNA,…
Radiation therapy can indeed cause permanent DNA mutations. This happens because radiation, especially ionizing radiation used in therapy, has enough energy to break chemical bonds within DNA molecules. The most critical damage it causes is double-strand breaks (DSBs) in the…
Fast-dividing cells absorb more damage from radiation primarily because their rapid cell cycle progression makes them more vulnerable to DNA damage and less able to repair it effectively. Radiation causes damage mainly by breaking DNA strands, and cells that are…
When normal tissue is exposed to radiation, a complex series of biological events unfolds that can lead to damage at the cellular and molecular levels. Radiation primarily affects cells by depositing energy that causes ionization, which can directly break DNA…
Cancer cells tend to die more easily from radiation than normal cells primarily because of their inherent biological differences, particularly in how they handle DNA damage and cell cycle regulation. Radiation therapy works by damaging the DNA inside cells, and…
Radiation dose determines tissue destruction primarily by the amount of energy deposited in cells and tissues, which causes damage at the molecular and cellular levels. When radiation interacts with biological tissues, it transfers energy that can break chemical bonds, especially…