Question: What is the difference between Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy?

Rob Brass answered on 20 Jun 2016:

Radiotherapy is where we use beams of radiation to kill the tumour. We normally aim the beams from a few different directions and try to avoid passing through healthy organs. The beams all overlap in the tumour and so we give a much higher dose there than anywhere else. The radiation interacts in the body and kills cells by damaging their DNA, however as we give more dose to the tumour than anywhere else, we kill a lot more tumour cells than normal cells.

Chemotherapy is where we use a type of medicine to kill the cancer cells. It targets cells that grow and mutliply quickly as this is what cancer cells do. However, the medicines used in chemotherapy can’t distinguish between fast-growing cancer cells and other types of fast-growing cells, such as blood cells, skin cells and the cells inside the stomach, so it often also attacks these and can make patients feel quite ill. Chemotherapy is the treatment responsible for hair loss.

Chemo isnt really my specialist area so if you want some more info I’d have a look here:

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/chemotherapy/Pages/Definition.aspx

Thanks! 🙂