Radiotherapy

At our cancer centres in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, radiotherapy sits alongside cancer imaging and specialist care. Using linear accelerators and image-based planning, our teams shape radiation to match each person's tumour. Some courses use everyday external beam treatment; others concentrate the dose tightly around the target or focus it on very small areas.

What is radiotherapy?

Radiotherapy uses targeted radiation to treat disease, most often cancer. Scans such as CT, MRI and PET map where the disease sits, so the team can aim high-energy beams at it while sparing nearby healthy tissue. It treats many cancers, including breast, prostate and lung cancer, and can ease symptoms when cancer has spread. Diagnostic radiology images the body to find disease; radiotherapy treats it. A radiation oncologist plans your care and reviews how you respond.

How you're referred for radiotherapy

Radiotherapy is arranged for you by your cancer team. You'll usually be referred after your diagnosis is confirmed and your treatment plan has been discussed.

Your cancer team may recommend radiotherapy to:

• Treat a cancer with the aim of curing it
• Shrink a tumour before surgery, or lower the risk of it returning afterwards
• Work alongside chemotherapy for certain cancers
• Ease symptoms such as pain when cancer has spread

Whether radiotherapy is right for you depends on the type and stage of your cancer and your general health. Your radiation oncologist talks this through with you, and in the UAE you'll usually reach radiotherapy through the specialist or cancer team already looking after you.

What to expect

Radiotherapy starts with a planning session, not treatment. You'll usually have a planning CT scan in the treatment position, and the team may make tiny skin marks, or a mould or mask for head and neck areas, so the same spot is treated each day. Physicists and your radiation oncologist then use these images to design a plan that targets the cancer and protects the healthy tissue around it.

Treatment is usually spread over short daily sessions, often Monday to Friday for a few days to several weeks. Each session takes only a few minutes, the machine doesn't touch you, and you won't feel the radiation. Side effects tend to build over the course; tell your team if one troubles you between visits, and they'll manage it. They explain the plan and ask for your consent before treatment starts.

Radiotherapy at Mediclinic

We provide radiotherapy at our cancer centres in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where radiation treatment, cancer imaging and specialist teams work in one place. At Mediclinic City Hospital's Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Dubai and Mediclinic Airport Road Hospital in Abu Dhabi, our teams use linear accelerators and image-based planning to deliver external beam radiotherapy.

Our techniques include methods that mould the dose to the shape of the tumour, track it with imaging during treatment, and focus a high dose on small, well-defined targets. We also offer brachytherapy, where a radiation source is placed inside the body to treat cancers such as those of the cervix and prostate. Treatment is planned from CT scans taken in the treatment position, and imaging on the machine checks the target before each session. Medical physicists, radiographers and radiation oncologists plan and deliver each course together.