Chemotherapy and radiation are among the most effective treatments to improve survival in cancer patients.
Verywell / Jessica Olah
What are the Differences Between Chemo and Radiation?
With chemotherapy, drugs are givenorallyor through an intravenous (IV) injection.
Verywell / Jessica Olah
These drugs kill cancer cells or shrink or destroy a tumor.
Chemotherapy can have effects system-wide, which means it impacts your whole body.
These drugs specifically damage and kill cells that grow quickly.
They interfere with cells' ability to divide.
Radiationalso aims to shrink or destroy a cancerous tumor, but through a different process.
Unlike chemotherapy, radiation is usually a local treatment, meaning it doesn’t travel throughout your body.
There are two types of local treatment: internal radiation and external beam radiation.
The former is an injection of radiation in a solid or liquid into the tumor or nearby tissues.
The latter involves an software of radiation from a beam generated by a machine outside the body.
What Are the Benefits of Chemo and Radiation?
Both chemotherapy and radiation are effective and often essential treatment options for many cancers.
When cancer spreads, it can be challenging to treat.
On the other hand, radiation can successfully shrink or destroy specific tumors.
How Do Chemo and Radiation Side Effects Differ?
Both chemotherapy and radiation work to destroy cancer cells, which can take a toll on the entire body.
But they may affect the body in different ways.
Commonside effects of chemotherapyinclude:
Chemotherapy is oftengiven in cycles.
Your healthcare provider may be able to tweak your cycle schedule or dosage to help improve your side effects.
A social worker on your care team can help you navigate this sometimes tricky situation.
However, local radiation can have side effects if nearby healthy tissues are damaged during treatment.
venture to get more sleep at night and take short naps during the day when needed.
How Do the Risks of Chemo and Radiation Differ?
Which Is Harder on the Body: Chemo or Radiation?
It is difficult to say what cancer therapy will be more difficult for your body to handle.
Different types and dosages of both chemotherapy and radiation will have different effects.
These effects also differ depending on the person getting them.
A systemic treatment like chemotherapy or liquid radiation may have more off-target side effects than a local treatment.
Can Chemo and Radiation Be Used Together?
Some cancers can be treated with just radiation.
These are most often cancers caught earlybefore they’ve grown large or started to spread.
Most of the time, cancer treatment plans will contain multiple treatments.
These treatments can include radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, surgery, targeted therapies, or immune therapies.
When your healthcare provider combines multiple treatments at once, its called a combination treatment plan.
Combination treatments are used for many reasons.
Treatments may be more effective when theyre combined.
For example, chemotherapy may make radiation treatments more effective.
If your healthcare provider suggests undergoing one bang out of treatment before others, its calledneoadjuvant treatment.
Neoadjuvant treatments are typically used to shrink a tumor or destroymetastasesbefore the primary tumor is surgically removed.
Summary
Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are each used to treat cancer.
Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment, while radiation therapy is often a localized treatment but may be systemic.
Both can have side effects, which can differ by the patient and how the treatment is given.
Whether one treatment is harder on the body than another will vary accordingly.
Sometimes they are both used to treat a person’s cancer.
National Cancer Institute.Chemotherapy to treat cancer.
National Cancer Institute.Radiation therapy to treat cancer.
National Cancer Institute.Definition of micrometastasis.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.Managing your chemotherapy side effects.
National Cancer Institute.Radiation therapy side effects.
Yale Medicine.Managing side effects from radiation therapy.
National Cancer Institute.Fertility issues in girls and women with cancer.
American Cancer Society.How cancer and cancer treatment can affect fertility in males.
National Cancer Institute.Combination treatments.
