Radiotherapy is having no benefits for secondary brain tumors

Radiotherapy is the only hope some cancer patients have.  Unfortunately, it seems that brain radiotherapy has no substantial effects on the quality of life of lung cancer patients, who have the disease spread to the brain. There is still hope for patients younger than 60 years old.

According to the study, the brain radiotherapy should not be included in the treatment of patients who are struggling with cancer that has spread to the brain.  Paula Mulvenna, one of the authors of the study, said that “ Whole brain radiotherapy was widely adopted into clinical practice based on the assumption it improves tumor control in patients with brain metastases. But in our lung cancer clinics, we were not seeing the improvements we had hoped for in our patients.”

Researchers used data from 530 patients who were diagnosed with this disease from 2007 to 2014. From all these patients, 536 died by  October and most of them were treated with the brain radiotherapy. They compared the people who  had the treatment with those who did not. What they discovered could be surprising for most people. The groups lived for a similar number of years and had the same quality of life. There were 30 patients who felt better after getting the brain radiotherapy,  but the percent is too small compared to those who had no benefits from it.

Cancer is one of the biggest threats at this moment. There is no cure for it as chemotherapy and radiotherapy are only helping people feel better or slowing down the disease. A few people survive this disease, but there it hopes for everyone.  Although radiotherapy is not as effective as we hope, people still try because it is their only chance.

When the cancer is spreading to the brain, there are few chances that chemotherapy is able to help. That is why radiotherapy is used more in this situation. However,  this study shows us that lung cancer patients have the same risk.

There are thousands of people diagnosed with lung cancer every year, in the United States. Men have a greater chance to develop this disease than women. Do you think that this study will make a difference? People seem to try every treatment they can just to have more days with their families and friends.

Image source: Wikipedia