April 15-21, 2024 is the 30th National Cancer Prevention and Control Awareness Week. As one of the three major treatment methods for tumors, radiotherapy has a history of over a hundred years, but there are still many cancer patients and their families who have biases against radiotherapy. Yang Kunyu, Chief Physician of the Oncology Department at Tongji Medical College Affiliated Union Hospital of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, stated in an interview that with the increasing accuracy of radiotherapy, today's radiotherapy is no longer "damaging one thousand enemies and self damaging eight hundred". Yang Kunyu introduced that radiotherapy refers to the use of radiation to treat tumors, which can be used in various stages of tumor treatment to achieve different treatment goals. For early cancer patients, radiation therapy often has a curative effect; For patients with advanced tumors, radiotherapy can serve as an adjuvant treatment method; For advanced cancer patients, radiation therapy can help them control pain. In addition, Yang Kunyu pointed out that radiotherapy and chemotherapy are two completely different methods of tumor treatment. Radiation therapy is the process of breaking the genetic material DNA of tumor cells through the energy of radiation, making them unable to reproduce. Chemotherapy is treated by administering drugs that are toxic to tumor cells. Regarding the public's concerns about side effects, Yang Kunyu stated that the common side effects of radiotherapy are mainly related to the site of irradiation, such as dry mouth and difficulty opening the mouth after oral irradiation. But the treatment plan, which has been professionally evaluated and designed, can ensure precise irradiation of tumors while maximizing the protection of normal tissues and controlling side effects within an acceptable range. Will the body carry radiation after radiotherapy? Yang Kunyu said that the entire radiotherapy is divided into internal irradiation and external irradiation in terms of radiation methods. Usually, more radiation methods are used for external irradiation, which only allows patients to receive radiation while lying in the treatment frame, and there is almost no possibility of patients taking the radiation out and affecting the surrounding population. For internal radiation, there is indeed radiation in the patient's body, so it is necessary to avoid contact with people and reduce the impact on the surrounding population. (Lai Xin She)