A downside to radiation

Methods related to preventing breast cancer are obviously very popular and prevalent. Various methods are explored in the hopes of reducing the risk of breast cancer and some of these may include radiation. The results thus far have indeed shown that radiation can help to reduce the likelihood of breast cancer occurring in women, but this method does come with a price. According to recent studies, it has been revealed that the aforementioned radiation used to reduce and even eliminate the possible threat of breast cancer has an adverse effect in that it may increase the likelihood that a patient may undergoing the therapy may develop heart disease. The increased risk for the development of heart disease may stem from instances of incidental exposure of the heart to the radiation.

When does it develop?

Further findings from the recent studies have shown that there is a correlation between the intensity of the radiation being given to the body and the rate at which the risk for heart disease is increased. This particular finding would seem to give hope to women undergoing the radiation therapy as it simply means that they can scale back the amount of radiation that they expose themselves to each session and avoid the risk that way, but that would also limit the effectiveness of the therapy itself. In order for the radiation to accomplish its goal of drastically minimizing the threat of breast cancer within a patient, it needs to be dosed out in significant enough amounts for there to be a visible impact. Anything less would be more of an aesthetic treatment than an effective one. Thankfully, an upgrade to the devices that dispense radiation now allows them to more accurately target a specific part of the body. This can prevent instances wherein radiation is accidentally focused to the region of the heart, possibly causing the development of the ailment.

Radiation’s still worth it

With all the findings indicating that radiation is at least a threat to overall heart health, the logical conclusion would seem to involve pursuing another method to drastically reduce the odds of contracting breast cancer, but that’s not necessarily the case. Even with the risk inherent to the method of radiation therapy, all the results so far have indicated quite bluntly that it is still one of the most effective ways to greatly reduce the occurrence of breast cancer, particularly for patients who are most at risk for it. Simply put, the benefits of undergoing radiation therapy for women who have had surgical procedures done on their breasts are too great in terms of cancer reduction for them to be let go of completely. In this case, the pros of radiation outweigh whatever negative effects they may also present.