What Radiation Oncology Wants Medical Oncology to Know

Optimal radiation treatment planning and symptom management for radiotherapy toxicities are keys to patient adherence and good outcomes, according to radiation oncology specialists who described the field at JADPRO Live. J. Nicholas Lukens, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, described the basics of radiation oncology, indicating that its target is cellular DNA. “What we are usually trying to do with radiation is to cause doublestrand breaks in cancer cells,” he said. “Cancer cells divide faster than normal cells but they are not good at repairing DNA and therefore are more vulnerable to radiotherapy.” Focused radiotherapy stops tumor cells from dividing, thus controlling tumor growth, and it ideally kills them and cures the cancer, Dr. Lukens said.