Radiation treatment involves the use of high-energy rays, such as X-rays to kill or shrink cancer cells. Chemotherapy on the other hand includes the use of drugs to kill the cancer cells. In most cases radiation or chemotherapy is given after surgery to make sure that all the cancer cells are completely destroyed. Although both the treatments were not being given in combination to a patient except in a few cases such as lung cancer, the treatment is combined these days to effectively fight cancer. In some areas, chemotherapy radiation therapy has become the standard treatment to cure cancer.

The drugs used in chemotherapy work differently to stop the cancer cells from growing. Radiation on the other hand damages tumor cells using X-rays. The combination of both the treatments might kill more tumor cells leading to speedy recovery.

According to an analysis carried by an international team, chemotherapy when combined with radiation therapy to cure a certain type of lung cancer, made the patient live 50% longer than taking the treatment by any other method.

Research and trials have been carried to effectively combine both the therapies to get affective results. Walter Curran Jr., the professor and chair of Radiation Oncology at the Thomas Jefferson University and the Kimmel Cancer Center, led a trial to compare the effectiveness of giving radiation and chemotherapy at the same time by giving both the treatment simultaneously.

There have been various controversies with the simultaneous and sequential treatment of chemotherapy and radiation. People have been very keen to know which of these treatments in combination would prove helpful for cancer patients.

In the Unites States, radiation and chemotherapy has become a common method to treat cancer but in other European countries, the combination of these treatments is still not popular.

The international NSCLC intervened in the matter recently to examine the results after combining both the treatments. It has been noted that the five-year survival rate with sequential therapy was 10.6%, whereas with the concurrent treatment, it was 15.1%. The results were presented recently in a meeting by Dr. Curran at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Los Angeles.

Dr. Curran explained the difference between the two treatments stating that the techniques used for radiation and the drugs are the same but since the entire treatment plan is changed, it would take less time for the treatment, increasing the list of survivors.

Although chemotherapy and radiation therapy is broadly accepted and has been standardized in the United States, other countries are still not certain whether to take the big move. The argument is still not clear elsewhere whether the two therapies in combination would bring effective results.