Which is your type of cancer?

These tumours may affect motor function (walking, talking) as well as sensory function, due to the central nervous system being the human body’s control centre.

Many are situated close to critical structures (speech centre, brain stem – where the nerves exit – etc.), making it impossible to perform surgery completely.

All this negatively impacts the patient’s quality of life and their emotional state.

Radiotherapy, as a non-invasive treatment, enables safer treatment of certain critical areas of the brain (brain stem, spinal cord, etc.), where precision is particularly important.

Tumours of the oral cavity, pharynx and larynx affect the ability to speak and eat and can often cause pain.

Surgical treatment is often targeted at achieving eradication of the tumour, however, often this entails loss of function (hoarseness) or significant aesthetic changes (deformities, large incisions in the face/neck).

Radiotherapy, as a non-invasive treatment, enables the preservation of function in different areas, e.g. the voice in laryngeal cancer.

Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers and has a higher mortality rate. In the early stages it often presents no symptoms, therefore the disease is often detected when it has already advanced. Symptoms commonly developed are chest pain, shortness of breath, hoarse voice and persistent cough

Radiotherapy is a non-invasive treatment, which is safely performed in patients when surgery is not possible, achieving tumour control.

It enables shorter, effective treatments such as stereotactic body radiotherapy, or SBRT, in early cases, preventing surgery.

In patients with more advanced disease, it complements surgery achieving improved disease control.

It helps control symptoms (pain or breathing difficulty) and improves the patient’s quality of life.

Breast cancer is often diagnosed incidentally during screening mammography or other imaging tests. However, sometimes patients have pain or a pricking sensation in the affected breast.

Primary treatment is surgery. Radical mastectomy achieves better disease control in comparison with conservative surgery alone. Post-operative radiotherapy enables conservative treatment to be performed with the same disease control as mastectomy. Thus, the patient avoids more complicated surgery and the emotional impact of losing the affected breast, as well as possible complications from prosthesis implant.

In more advanced tumours, when mastectomy is required, radiotherapy may be necessary to ensure that not a single tumour cell remains, whilst helping to palliate symptoms such as ulcerated or bleeding lesions.

Pancreatic tumours often cause abdominal or back pain, loss of appetite or significant weight loss, making the patient very weak.

As symptoms are nonspecific and there is sometimes a delay in their appearance, a high percentage of patients are diagnosed when the disease is already advanced and therefore not suitable for surgery.

Radiotherapy achieves improved tumour control when the tumour is inoperable.

In borderline tumours, it can enable the patient to become a candidate for surgery.

It improves pain caused by this type of tumour.

Oesophageal or gastric tumours can make it impossible or difficult to eat, they can cause pain, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, all of which lead to the patient feeling weak.

Rectal and anal tumours can cause constipation, bowel obstruction or even faecal incontinence. They also cause blood in the stools and abdominal or regional pain.

As a result, the patient can feel constantly uncomfortable having a severe, negative impact on the patient’s quality of life.

Ideally these tumours are treated surgically to achieve complete removal. However, sometimes it is impossible to remove it entirely, and on many occasions, removal involves dependence on a stoma bag (colostomy) permanently.

Radiotherapy is a fundamental part of the multidisciplinary treatment in this type of tumour. It not only improves symptoms, but also disease control. Prior to surgery, it can reduce, or even eliminate the tumour, facilitating surgery and on occasion preventing the need to depend on a stoma bag forever.

Prostate tumours cause a series of uncomfortable symptoms for the patient which range from discomfort during urination, to incontinence or sexual dysfunction.

Other treatments control the disease, but with a greater impact on sexual or urinary function.

Radiotherapy, however, is a very effective treatment which controls prostate cancer with a minimal impact on sexual and urinary function.

Genitourinary tumours cause a series of uncomfortable symptoms for the patient which may include burning with urination or even incontinence or abnormal sexual function.

Other treatments control the disease, but at the cost of leaving the patient with more severe sexual dysfunction or with a higher chance of requiring a stoma bag for life, due to removal of the bladder.

However, radiotherapy treatment controls the disease, limiting its impact on sexual and urinary function.

Gynaecological tumours (endometrium, cervix, vagina) cause uncomfortable symptoms such as menstrual-type bleeding, abdominal pain and discomfort on passing urine.

Radiotherapy offers an effective treatment in this type of tumour, both alone and together with other treatments, such as surgery and/or chemotherapy.

Sometimes, when the tumour is already more advanced, radiotherapy can help to control symptoms (generally those related to bleeding) and thus improve the patient’s quality of life.

Haematological tumours are a complex group of blood and lymphatic system tumours that can develop in different parts of the body.

They often appears in the form of a conglomerate lymph node mass causing pain or lymphoedema (limb swelling). In the case of multiple myeloma, the tumour has a predilection for bone which then causes pain in the different parts of the skeleton affected.

These tumours are generally very sensitive to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the treatment of choice is therefore a combination of both.

Radiotherapy is a non-invasive and well tolerated treatment which helps chemotherapy to achieve optimal curative rates and in some cases improve pain caused by the disease.

When the tumour advances and spreads through the blood, systemic treatment (chemotherapy, immunotherapy or targeted therapy) is key to disease control.

However, sometimes local treatment, to improve control or improve symptoms, is required.

In these cases, radiotherapy is a short, non-invasive treatment which is generally well tolerated.

This treatment is important for central nervous system lesions, as some drugs struggle to reach this location; it is also important in bone, as bone tumours can be very painful and lead to loss of function.

There are some cases in which the number and size of metastases are limited, with radiotherapy treatment being able to control metastatic disease.

Soft tissue sarcomas can originate in fatty, muscle, fibrous, nerve, or even blood vessel tissue.

They generally present as masses or lumps in the limbs (arms or legs) although they can also appear in other areas.

Radiotherapy is an effective treatment that helps to control disease, reducing the tumour prior to surgery to make surgery easier, eliminating microscopic disease after surgery or visible disease after incomplete surgery.

If surgery is not possible, it may be considered as a principle treatment together with chemotherapy.