“Is radiotherapy effective for leukemia?”

We do not use radiation to treat leukemia. I did use radiation treat brain if patient has brain involvement or very high WBC or whole body before bone marrow transplant. I am sorry that may not be right answer for today because do not keep up in treatment of leukemia in children for a long time.

Without knowing exactly what kind of leukemia she has, it is difficult to comment. Most leukemias are treated with chemotherapy, and for certain leukemias the standard of care is a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Radiotherapy is rarely used for leukemia except as preparation for bone marrow transplant.

Radiotherapy is no longer commonly used in leukemias due to improvements in combination chemotherapy regimens. However, certain situations call for radiotherapy as a very effective treatment. In higher risk patients, cranial radiation is still used, for instance, if there is involvement of the eyes or of the spinal fluid. Another use is a induction treatment before a bone marrow rescue (transplant). The radiation treats the whole body (including all the cancer and all the bone marrow). The patient then gets a bone marrow transplant to rescue the bone marrow. The induction can be done with high-dose chemotherapy or with total body irradiation (TBI). This is a very effective treatment.

Please have a robust discussion with her doctors regarding the risks and benefits of treatment and it has to have an actual radiation oncologist explain the radiotherapy part as they’ll give you more accurate information than the pediatric oncologists will be able to.

I sincerely hope it all turns out well.

Leukemia cells are very sensitive to radiation therapy. Chemotherapy and radiation to the brain and spine may be used in treating some patients as an initial therapy or as a re-treatment of relapsed patient with curative intent. In addition, local accumulations of leukemia cells (chloromas) may be treated for palliation of symptoms.