TomoTherapy what kind of radiation is used?

At the risk of oversimplifying a very complex subject in physics and medicine, for the purposes of radiation therapy used in the treatment or cancer, all radiation is the same "kind" of ionizing radiation.  All of the different terms you'll hear, external beam radiation therapy (EBRT), linear accelerators ("linacs"), stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), CyberKnife, Gamma Knife, tomotherapy (and capitalized as TomoTherapy), intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), the list goes on — all are names, general and brand names, for different methods, machines, and systems for planning, targeting, shaping, and delivering fields of ionizing radiation to a tumor, typically with the goal of maximizing the amount of radiation delivered to the tumor and minimizing the amount received by surrounding healthy tissues.  In that regard, the kind of high energy delivered to a tumor in tomotherapy is essentially no different from the radiation fields created by the earliest linear accelerators used to treat cancer more than 50 years ago.  The technology has certainly evolved to improve precision, and tumors of different sizes and locations, including those that may be in motion (for example, in the lung) are better suited to certain systems, but all systems ultimately deliver a field of ionizing radiation to a tumor.

Best wishes for your upcoming treatment, Joe

At the risk of oversimplifying a very complex subject in physics and medicine, for the purposes of radiation therapy used in the treatment or cancer, all radiation is the same "kind" of ionizing radiation.  All of the different terms you'll hear, external beam radiation therapy (EBRT), linear accelerators ("linacs"), stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), CyberKnife, Gamma Knife, tomotherapy (and capitalized as TomoTherapy), intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), the list goes on — all are names, general and brand names, for different methods, machines, and systems for planning, targeting, shaping, and delivering fields of ionizing radiation to a tumor, typically with the goal of maximizing the amount of radiation delivered to the tumor and minimizing the amount received by surrounding healthy tissues.  In that regard, the kind of high energy delivered to a tumor in tomotherapy is essentially no different from the radiation fields created by the earliest linear accelerators used to treat cancer more than 50 years ago.  The technology has certainly evolved to improve precision, and tumors of different sizes and locations, including those that may be in motion (for example, in the lung) are better suited to certain systems, but all systems ultimately deliver a field of ionizing radiation to a tumor.

Best wishes for your upcoming treatment, Joe

At the risk of oversimplifying a very complex subject in physics and medicine, for the purposes of radiation therapy used in the treatment or cancer, all radiation is the same "kind" of ionizing radiation.  All of the different terms you'll hear, external beam radiation therapy (EBRT), linear accelerators ("linacs"), stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), CyberKnife, Gamma Knife, tomotherapy (and capitalized as TomoTherapy), intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), the list goes on — all are names, general and brand names, for different methods, machines, and systems for planning, targeting, shaping, and delivering fields of ionizing radiation to a tumor, typically with the goal of maximizing the amount of radiation delivered to the tumor and minimizing the amount received by surrounding healthy tissues.  In that regard, the kind of high energy delivered to a tumor in tomotherapy is essentially no different from the radiation fields created by the earliest linear accelerators used to treat cancer more than 50 years ago.  The technology has certainly evolved to improve precision, and tumors of different sizes and locations, including those that may be in motion (for example, in the lung) are better suited to certain systems, but all systems ultimately deliver a field of ionizing radiation to a tumor.

Best wishes for your upcoming treatment, Joe