Cancer cells have the ability to reproduce much faster than normal body cells. Radiation works to target and divide these cells before they have the chance to future reproduce and spread to other areas of the body. Cancer cells are unable to repair themselves as easily as normal cells, and therefore are effectively killed by radiation.

Radiation therapy can be given to patients by local treatments, externally or internally. External radiation therapy is typically an outpatient hospital visit that can be performed daily if needed. A radiation machine is set outside the body and geared towards the area where the cancer resides.

Internal radiation therapy consists of medicated pills, drinking the radiation in liquid form or an intravenous drip. Internal radiation usually calls for an overnight stay in the hospital. Radiation therapy can also be given by branchytherapy. Branchytherapy is small amounts of radioactive fluid injected directly into the tumor. Each type of radiation can be time-consuming and do not work for every patient.

Doctors have limited the damage to healthy tissue during radiation by:

* Closely targeting the radiation to direct cancer areas
* Separating treatments into several smaller sessions
* Maintaining equipment for the most efficient treatments.
* Using minimum radiation doses during treatments

Radiation therapy can be used to treat solid localized tumors such as ones that appear on the head, skin, brain, prostate or cervix. It can also be used to treat lymphoma and leukemia. Radiation therapy is one of the most common treatments for cancer and can be used for various types including cancers of the lung, head, bladder, neck and Hodgkin disease.

Your physician or radiation oncologist who have attended radiation therapy schools will determine the amount of radiation needed for your specific illness considering several factors such as where the tumor is located and its severity. The treatment may be only several treatments or may last as long as ten weeks. Each session takes only 30 to 40 minutes to complete while the radiation itself only lasts a few minutes. To fully benefit from radiation therapy, no sessions should be skipped.

The following above guest article was contributed by Richard Hemby who frequently writes about radiation therapy schools and other health career topics.

A protein promotes metastasis by providing characteristics of stem cells to cancer cells, according to a study by the University of Freiburg in Germany, which is published in the online edition of the journal Nature Cell Biology.

The finding suggests that using objective this feedback mechanism in which ZEB1 part, could represent a promising avenue for the treatment of certain cancers.

Previous studies showed that small RNAs miR200 family inhibited cell invasion and movement of certain cancerous tissues through direct inhibition of ZEB1. In turn, ZEB1 suppresses the expression of miR200.

The scientists, led by Thomas Brabletz now show that miR200 also inhibits several factors necessary for the maintenance of stem cell characteristics, including factors that promote self-renewal, proliferation and inhibition of differentiation.

The authors also show that the loss of ZEB1 in cell lines of human pancreatic cancer reduces their potential to suppress tumor initiation-dependent inhibition of miR200, the factors of stem cells.

By examining primary pancreatic cancer tissue of experimental models and humans, the researchers show that less differentiated tumors express high levels of ZEB1 and factors of stem cells, while tumors isolated from patients who are long-term survivors of pancreatic cancer ZEB1 levels are low.

The study suggests that ZEB1 promotes both expansion and tumor initiation by increasing stem cell characteristics of cells that migrate from the primary tumor to form metastases.

A new molecular tool could become a therapeutic option for acute myeloid leukemia.

According to a study published in the latest issue of Cell Stem Cell, preclinical studies conducted by a team from Children Cancer Institute Australia have demonstrated that CD123 molecule is over expressed in leukemia stem cells, whereas its expression in healthy cells is normal.

This molecule is part of the interleukin-3 receptor, a protein that interacts with a growth factor linked to survival and cell proliferation.

The creation of a monoclonal antibody that binds to CD 123 for attempting to interfere selectively in the survival of leukemia stem cells is the main innovation offered by the work coordinated by Richard Lock.

When tumor stem cells were transplanted into mice treated with the antibody, known as 7G3, cytokine signaling in cancer cells was blocked.

In addition, 7G3 inhibited the migration of leukemia stem cells in the marrow and activated the innate immune system of animals to destroy diseased cells.