Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy is the use of radiation to kill cancer cells, or destroy their ability to grow and multiply. Radiation therapy may be to cure or control cancer, or to relieve symptoms.

Radiation Therapy can be delivered from outside the body by focusing treatment beams to the site within the body (External Beam radiotherapy) or by placing radioactive sources within or adjacent to the treatment site Brachytherapy).

High dose rate brachytherapy is where the treatment is delivered quickly in a specially designed treatment room with treatment provided in from one to seven fractions, this treatment can be undertaken in most cases as an outpatient.


Superficial X-ray units are a type of external beam used mainly in the treatment of skin lesions.

Linear Accelerators are utilised in the provision of external beam therapy.

They can produce x-ray beams at different energies and also some have the capability of producing electron beams.

The type of external beam radiation used depends upon the site of the tumour as well as the amount of overlying tissue.

Having a range of options allows optimisation of the treatment whilst minimising the dose to surrounding normal tissues.

The radiation therapy treatments available at the clinic are:

• Megavoltage x-ray Therapy
• Megavoltage Electron Therapy
• High Dose Rate Brachytherapy
• Superficial x-ray Therapy.