Radiation Therapy

Anurag Singh, MD, and Emese Zsiros, MD, PhD, FACOG, are among the Roswell Park doctors finding innovative ways to improve patients’ quality of life without sacrificing effective cancer treatment.

An unusual treatment with a very long name is helping cancer patients who are experiencing xerostomia, one of the side effects of radiation to the head and neck. This dry mouth condition can damage salivary glands, causing chronic oral dryness and slowed salivation. 

Roswell Park’s Teresa Kishel, Senior Radiation Therapist, went out of her way to provide comfort to patients by offering them a soft, colorful shawl.

With stereotactic body radiotherapy, we can intensify treatment with less overall radiation exposure and fewer treatments. For the patient, this means improved convenience and quality of life and reduced costs, especially beneficial for patients who do not live nearby.

My advice to anyone who is or will be receiving radiation treatment is to know what side effects to expect, practice prevention, and address any side effects early with your doctor.

Cancer treatments such as drug or radiation therapies can cause mouth problems by directly damaging the tissues in your mouth and/or by weakening your immune system, which normally protects your mouth. Here's how you can keep your mouth healthy and happy.

The Radiation team treats patients with all different types of cancers, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t limit their awareness efforts to just one month.

While undergoing radiation treatment, you may never meet your dosimetrist. You might not even know you have a dosimetrist, but they play a key role in how effective your radiation treatment is at fighting your tumor.

Last winter, I had a sudden-onset headache. My primary care physician sent me to a specialist, who ordered multiple scans, and the next thing I knew, I was being told I had a meningioma, a benign brain tumor.

When radiation therapy is delivered from outside the body, it travels through the skin to the tumor, damaging healthy skin cells along the way. This can lead to radiation dermatitis (irritated skin), which can last several weeks after treatment ends.
Radiation therapy plays an integral role in the treatment plan for many breast cancer patients, reducing cancer recurrence and improving survival.

Following breast cancer removal by lumpectomy, whole breast irradiation is commonly required. We know that when breast cancer cells return after surgical removal, they often recur in the area where the tumor was removed.