Question: Is this right i, If you have a tumour it can be removed or killed by an operation or chemo, but if your tumor is above the stage three level you can't have radiation. Is this correct and if so why not?

Joanna Watson answered on 18 Jun 2010:

Hi Emma and Izzy.
There are lots of different treatments for cancer and which one a person is give depends on where in the body it started, what the tumour cells are like (for example, does oestrogen make them grow or not) and how much the cancer has spread in the body.

Radiotherapy works by damaging the cancers cells so badly that they die, but it is not specific to cancer cells and has to be targeted at the tumour to try not to kill too many healthy cells. If the cancer is advanced and has spread to lots of places in the body, trying to use radiotherapy would be too dangerous, because it would damage too many healthy cells and would make the person worse not better.