Chemo And Radiation Essay

Improved Essays
With these high energy beams, it can pinpoint and destroy any cancerous cells within the body by using a special equipment to send high doses of radiation ( MD Anderson Cancer Center). In fact, radiation can be given three different ways which are:
• External radiation
• Internal radiation
• Systemic radiation
However, these types of radiation are given by the type, size, and location of cancer within the body. What is more, radiation can also destroy normal cells by making small breaks in the DNA which can cause telomere dysfunction. As the same reason mentioned on the chemo section, it proves that telomeres functioning appears to be highly involved in human biological aging processing. However, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital has also
…show more content…
Physical Side Effects of Chemo and Radiation
The most common side effect with chemo and radiation treatments is: hair loss, fatigue, nausea, pain, risk of infection, depression, numbness or weakness in the hands and feet (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 2015). More importantly, cancer patients that are treated with chemo and/or radiation will more likely experience health conditions that are normally seen in older adults. According to MD Anderson Cancer Center, the most common long-term side effects for women are early menopause and osteoporosis. With the menopause, after the chemo and/or radiation treatment, most women stop getting their periods every month or stop getting them altogether. For the reason, that the treatments can cause changes within the body by reducing the amount of hormones that the body produce (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 2015). Likewise, these treatments can also

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Unit 1 Radioactive Decay

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Task 1: radioactive decay is a nuclei of some isotopes which are unstable. If a radioactive isotope decays the it will change and become a different atom with different number of protons. Radioactive decays also are a process which has an unstable atomic nucleus and which causes it to lose energy this because of radiation, for example there three main types of radioactive decay alpha, beta, and gamma particle. If a material has unstable nuclei it would be considered as radioactive. If an atom has emitted an alpha, or beta radiation it nucleus would change and become an nucleus of an different element.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    (St.Jude Children's Research Hospital, 2010)…

    • 394 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These three treatment options come with multiple side effects. Side effects of chemotherapy are are fatigue, hair loss, easy bruising and bleeding, infection, anemia, vomiting, nausea, constipation, and diarrhea, etc. The main side effects of radiation are fatigue and skin changes. Other early side effects are hair loss and mouth problems when treated in this area.…

    • 286 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Once again we get to our infusion getaway at 8:30 am for the last of a two-part chemo. You have to psych yourself preparing for another day of this. Like you psych yourself to eat liver as a kid. Or psych yourself for a psycho as president. Well it turns out her white blood count was too low and we had to postpone until next week.…

    • 164 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dbq Essay On Cancer

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the past years, cancer has been a common reason for death. Research shows that the older you get the more risk you have of getting cancer. There are current trends about cancer specifically related to age. I am writing this essay to explain these current trends. The current trends about cancer specifically related to age are increasing.…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Prostate Cancer Case Study

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages

    1. The three treatment options function synergistically to benefit the patient with prostate cancer. The ionizing radiation causes single and double stranded breaks to the neoplastic cells DNA, this halts replication and cell function until it can be repaired. Etoposide is a podophyllotoxin that inhibits topoisomerase II, the enzyme responsible for unwinding the DNA. If the DNA cannot unwind, the cell will be unable to replicate, transcribe mRNA, or repair itself.…

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Tumor Hypoxia

    • 162 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Repair: Repair is one of the primary reasons for fractionation. The smaller dose fractions separated in time allow normal tissue to recover , and normal tissue with intact repair capacity generally has a better ability to repair damage than tumors. Redistribution: Cells in some phases of the cell cycle are more radiosensitive than in other . Dose delivery over time allows for redistribution so that tumor cells in a resistant phase continue to cycle into a more sensitive phase.…

    • 162 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Radiation Burns A burn is an injury caused by an excessive amount of heat. It damages the skin, causing tissue destruction. There are four types of burns; thermal, chemical, electrical, and radiation burns. Someone might get a radiation burn if they are overexposed to industrial ionizing radiation or after doing a radiotherapy treatment.…

    • 338 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The heart and cardiovascular system are greatly affected by radiation and chemotherapy medications, especially by a class of drugs called anthracycline. “It’s not uncommon for many cancer survivors to experience heart problems, such as swelling of the heart muscle, heart disease and congestive heart failure” (Grush). Additionally, chemotherapy can cause long-term lung damage, leading to thickening of the lung 's lining, which can make breathing difficult. As reported by Side Effects of Chemotherapy, “Although the most common side effect of chemotherapy is suppression of the body’s immune system.” If it is suppressed for an extended period of time, the lowered immune system can obtain secondary infections throughout the course of cancer survivor’s…

    • 1352 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    IV or pill form. The most common chemotherapy drug is temozolomide and side effects can be hair loss, vomiting and nausea. Rehabilitation is usually needed after treatment and the most commonly used types are physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and mental therapy to help with cogitative issues. Targeted drug therapy is a form of treatment involving focusing on specific abnormalities in the cancer cells that can be targeted by drugs. Avastin can be used to treat glioblastoma, and Afinitor can be used to treat benign tumors.…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    My first chemotherapy session came around the first week of January. Once I got in the hospital, I had no idea what was about happen. There was a bunch of things I had no idea about. Still in denial, I walked in that hospital like a champ; no worries whatsoever. I just tried to block everything out and just focused on getting ready to come home.…

    • 178 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A few years ago, my twenty-eight year old cousin was diagnosed with cancer. At the time, she was a single mother of a seven year old little boy and working two jobs to support them. After learning about the cancer, she decided to move in with me so she could fight the cancer. All she wanted was to be able to watch her son, James grow up. The cancer was very aggressive and seemed to be taken over her at a fast rate.…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Radiation is involved in radiation therapy. Radiation therapy can cure cancer and relieve symptoms by breaking the DNA inside the cancerous cells using beams of high-energy waves called radiation. Another cancer treatment is chemotherapy, chemotherapy works by using anticancer drugs to cause various damage to cancerous cells ; as this takes place, the cancerous cells loses its ability to grow and reproduce. Many side effects occur due to the process of chemotherapy. According to www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer, it lists the various side effects, “Chemotherapy sometimes causes these types of pain: mouth and throat sores, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, constipation, blood disorder, and nervous system effects.”…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The treatment becomes more difficult for metastatic breast cancer because of the systemic spread to the rest of the body. Those with metastatic breast cancer have different treatment options available to them. The goal for these patients is not necessarily to cure the cancer, but to control its growth from further spreading. It is important to understand and become aware of these different treatments because of how common breast cancer is in our…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many Americans go through their days not without the knowledge that they are facing commodities that pay its derivation, to some degree, to some NASA project or other astronomical research. This is particularly true when one is thinking about the medical field and a lot of its advancements. Various medical innovations are the result of NASA 's collaborations with other examiners, and others were derived as a result of NASA researchers who recognized significance in findings and mechanics they contrived and industrialized for the specificity of aiding spacecraft’s in staying airborne and the astronauts in good health. I will be discussing astronomy and related space technology and how it has been related to the discoveries of MRIs, CAT scans,…

    • 730 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays