Q:

In radiotherapy, why is the patient’s irradiation treatment “fractionated”, that is, consist of (say) 20 sessions and spread over (say) 4 weeks – rather than given all at 1 session?

belongs to book: Examination Questions and Answers in Basic Anatomy and Physiology|Martin Caon|| Chapter number:17.2| Question number:3

waelhammad

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2022-10-21

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In radiotherapy, why is the patient’s irradiation treatment “fractionated”, that is, consist of (say) 20 sessions and spread over (say) 4 weeks – rather than given all at 1 session?

Fractionation allows time for the normal healthy tissue that is also irradiated, to recover in between irradiations.
Extremely high energy electrons bombard the target of a linear accelerator, fractionation is necessary to allow the x-ray target to cool.
In order to irradiate the tumor over a period of time that it is growing.
Irradiating in a single session takes too long, people cannot remain immobile for the time it would require.

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waelhammad

2022-10-21

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A: Radiotherapy also damages the healthy tissue through which it passes. By choosing a different path for the radiotherapy beam through the body for the next “fraction”, whilst at the same time ensuring that the tumor is always in the beam, allows the healthy tissue time to recover.

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