What is the difference between radiotherapy and chemotherapy for liver cancer? Learn about radiotherapy and chemotherapy

Cancer patients and their families often don’t understand the difference between radiotherapy and chemotherapy, nor do they know what the side effects are. Doctors often fail to understand quickly when communicating with them. Here is a simple popular science article for everyone:

1. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are both effective methods for treating cancer.
As we all know, there are three effective methods for treating cancer: surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. According to statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1991, 45% of patients with malignant tumors can be cured, of which 22% are treated with surgery, 18% with radiotherapy, and 5% with chemotherapy. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy can be used alone or in combination. The method of doing chemotherapy after radiotherapy or radiotherapy after chemotherapy is called sequential radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and the simultaneous use of radiotherapy and chemotherapy is called synchronous radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Many studies in recent years have confirmed that if the physical condition permits, synchronous radiotherapy and chemotherapy are more effective.
2. What is radiotherapy?
Radiotherapy is radiation therapy. Simply put, it is a treatment method that uses various high-energy rays to irradiate tumors to inhibit and kill cancer cells. It is commonly known as "electric heating". Radiotherapy technology has made rapid progress in recent years, with continuous improvement in efficacy and reduction in side effects. Especially the recent development of precise radiotherapy technology. It achieves precise positioning, precise planning, and precise treatment. Just like a missile destroying a target.
3. What is chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy is the use of chemical drugs (including endocrine drugs, etc.) to treat malignant tumors. Chemotherapy drugs are usually injected intravenously, orally, injected into arteries, injected into the chest and abdominal cavity, or other forms to kill tumors.
4. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy affect different areas of the body.
Radiotherapy, like surgery, is a local treatment with a specific tumor target or a target area. High energy is used to irradiate the target tumor or area to kill tumor cells. Chemotherapy is mainly systemic treatment. After the drug enters the body through intravenous drip or oral administration, it will be distributed throughout the body. Tumor cells grow faster than normal cells, and chemotherapy drugs have a greater killing effect on them. Chemotherapy drugs not only kill visible tumor cells, but also have a strong killing effect on tiny invisible metastatic lesions. Of course, there are exceptions. There are also local chemotherapy such as thoracic and abdominal perfusion, intrathecal injection, and interventional perfusion chemotherapy. Interventional perfusion chemotherapy is to inject high concentrations of chemotherapy drugs into the blood vessels inside the tumor through a very thin catheter, especially dose-dependent chemotherapy drugs. It can achieve the purpose of increasing local efficacy and reducing systemic reactions.