Radiation Therapy for Lung Cancers
External Beam Radiation Therapy
External beam radiation therapy is the safe delivery of high-energy X-rays to your cancer. A radiation-delivery machine (called a linear accelerator) focuses the radiation beam to a precise location in your body for an exact period of time. Radiation is given in a series of daily treatments, Monday through Friday, for several weeks. Treatments are painless and last less than 30 minutes.
- Radiation therapy uses multiple radiation fields to deliver high doses of radiation to the cancer while minimizing the radiation received by surrounding healthy cells.
- Three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) combines multiple radiation treatment fields to deliver precise doses of radiation to the lung tumor. Radiation oncologists are able to tailor each of the radiation beams to focus on the tumor while protecting nearby healthy tissue.
- Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is a specialized form of 3D-CRT that modifies the radiation by varying the intensity of each radiation beam. IMRT is still being studied for lung cancer.
- Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) is a specialized form of 3D-CRT that delivers high doses of radiation to small and very precisely defined targets over a shortened course of therapy, often in as few as three to five treatments. SBRT is currently being studied for the treatment of selected patients with lung cancer.
- Doctors are also studying a type of external beam radiation therapy that uses proton beams rather than X-rays. Proton beam therapy is only available at a few clinics in the U.S. and may allow doctors to better keep radiation away from other parts of the body that don’t need treatment.
- More about external beam radiation therapy
