Learn About Specific Systemic Radiation Therapy (SRT) Options
This is a type of radiation therapy in which a radioactive substance, such radioactive iodine or a radioactively labeled monoclonal antibody, is swallowed or injected into the body.
Radioactive iodine (I-131) has been used for decades to help treat selected thyroid cancer patients after surgery, although it can be used less commonly to treatment hyperthyroidism, or Graves’ disease.
Taken in a pill form, RAI may require a short hospital stay to allow your body to clear the isotope safely before you are able to go home. RAI works by absorption into the body after the pill is swallowed. Iodine-131 travels through the blood. Thyroid cells are almost the only cells to take up the iodine, which is why systemic radiation treatment is possible without many side effects on the rest of the body.
Currently Radiation Oncology Associates offers RAI in New Hampshire at the following locations:
Locations: Dover, Lowell, Manchester
Radium-223 is utilized for men with bone only metastases as a way to potentially improve outcomes. When hormone treatments no longer work well, men with disease that has spread to the bone with or without lymph nodes may benefit from this treatment. It is an alternative that may be considered before or after chemotherapy, but currently the two are not offered together.
Currently, Ra-223 given as a series of six outpatient injections by a radiation oncologist.
Locations: Lowell, Manchester
