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Asked by anon-197620 to Sonal, Marleen on 8 Mar 2019. This question was also asked by anon-197493.
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Sonal Bhadane answered on 8 Mar 2019:
This is an excellent question.
Radiation is known to damage the DNA of the normal cell. This can cause a normal cell to either die or repair the damage or can cause mutations (an anomaly in the cell that can affect its growth). And if these mutations collect overtime it may cause cancer.
So the idea is if we radiated these cancer cells with the really high energy radiation then this radiation will damage the DNA of the Cancer cell. This radiation is so high energy that we don’t give the chance for the cancer cell to repair, instead it will just die.
Having said that we have to be careful when delivering such high radiation into the body purposefully to kill cancer and making sure no normal cells are affected. This radiation has to be delivered highly accurately and precisely to the cancer location.
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Marleen Wilde answered on 13 Mar 2019:
Nice explanation from Sonal. I can just add that cancer cells, due to their mutations, are very often resistant to medical treatment such as chemotherapy and therefore harsher treatments such as radiotherapy are often required to actually combat the cancer cells. As Sonal said, it’s a very targeted radiation to the tumors and not to the rest of the body, therefore it is less dangerous than “normal” radiation. Also, did you know in some cases radiation is considered to be good? Near my parents is a Spa bath with natural hot spring water which has Radon in it. People go there because it is said the Radon has positive effects on their aches and bones and they even drink it! It always depends on the type and dose of radiation, if it is harmful to you (and can cause cancer) or if it actually has health benefits. Have a look at this article, but I know it’s quite a lot of difficult terms and technical language in there. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/04/06/small-radiation/#.XIjHsqDgpQI
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