What is Chemotherapy (found on Wikipedia)

Chemotherapy, in its most general sense, refers to treatment of disease by chemicals that kill cells, specifically those of micro-organisms or cancer. In popular usage, it usually refers to antineoplastic drugs used to treat cancer or the combination of these drugs into a standardized treatment regimen.

Radiation Therapy (from cancer.org)

ATTENTION: THIS PARTICULAR ARTICLE IS BASED ON RADIATION THERAPY FOR STOMACH CANCER, BUT IT CAN BE USED FOR MOST TYPES OF CANCER.

 

  Radiation therapy uses high-energy rays or particles to kill cancer cells in a specific area of the body.

External-beam radiation therapy is the type of radiation therapy often used to treat stomach cancer. This treatment involves focusing the radiation on the cancer from a machine outside the body. Having this type of radiation therapy is like having an x-ray, except that each treatment lasts longer, and the patient usually receives 5 treatments per week over a period of weeks or months.

After surgery, radiation therapy can be used to kill very small remnants of the cancer that cannot be seen and removed during surgery. Radiation therapy, especially when combined with chemotherapy drugs such as 5-FU, may delay or prevent cancer recurrence after surgery and may help patients live longer. Radiation therapy can also be used to ease the symptoms of stomach cancer, such as pain, bleeding, and eating problems.


Side effects from radiation therapy can include mild skin problems, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or fatigue. These usually go away 2 to 3 weeks after the treatment is finished. Radiation therapy may also make the side effects of chemotherapy worse. Please be sure to talk with your doctor about these side effects since there are ways to relieve them. 

Tomotherapy (from Brachytherapy.com

Quite simply, tomotherapy represents the future of radiation therapy. The leap in technology from regular radiation therapy is overwhelming. Tomotherapy will do a quick CT scan before each treatment starts, to ensure the patient is aligned perfectly. A thin beam is rotated around the body, entering from many directions, while the couch simultaneously moves into the machine. This effectively results in thousands of little beamlets of different intensities entering the body, converging on the tumors. A very powerful multiple-processor computer calculates the treatment plans and coordinates treatment delivery. Tomo can treat big or little tumors, single or multiple tumors, one region of the body or several regions, to the same dosage in every area or to multiple different dosages. The possibilities are endless! Tomo can avoid organs we tell it to. We can miss the salivary glands and treat the throat tumor. Miss the spinal cord and retreat the spinal bone. Miss the kidneys and treat the pancreas.

Tomotherapy is actually a form of intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). Since 1997 we have had three other IMRT machines at our center and our opinion is that tomotherapy is more advanced and versatile than other forms of IMRT. In our experience tomotherapy has been particularly valuable for the following conditions:

Retreating previously irradiated areas of the body

Treating Multiple Metastases simultaneously

Treating all metastases throughout the body simultaneously

Treating lung cancers, breast cancers, and prostate cancers.