What is radiation therapy

  At present, the 5-year survival rate after malignant tumor treatment reaches 45%. The reason for the improvement of survival rate is, firstly, the increase of the proportion of early stage patients; secondly, the progress of comprehensive treatment. Radiation therapy and surgery integrated treatment: i. Pre-surgical radiation therapy The advantages are that irradiation can shrink the tumor, reduce the contamination of cancer cells in the surgical field, allow a smaller surgical resection area, and reduce the vitality of cancer cells to reduce the spread. The disadvantage is the lack of pathological guidance and delayed surgery. The value of pre-surgical radiation therapy is more certain for head and neck cancer, lung apical cancer, etc.   The advantage of intraoperative radiation therapy is that it can be irradiated under direct vision, the target area is clear and normal tissues can be well protected. Its disadvantage is that it can only be irradiated once, which is not in line with the principle of fractionated irradiation.  Third, post-surgical radiation therapy Its advantage is that most of the tumor has been removed, and there are surgical and pathological guidance for radiation therapy. The disadvantage is that it damages the blood flow and may cause the residual cancer cells to be insensitive due to lack of oxygen, such as post-surgical radiation therapy for breast cancer and soft tissue sarcoma.  IV. Pre- and post-surgical radiation therapy Head and neck cancer, soft tissue sarcoma.