MEXICO – The High Specialty Regional Hospital of Ixtapaluca began operating in the area of brachytherapy to provide a less invasive treatment to those suffering from cancer.

Dr. Chagoya Alejandro Gonzalez, who belongs to the Radio-oncology at the hospital said that brachytherapy is a treatment modality that allows the application of a radioactive source to the tumor.

The use of devices according to each condition is applied and only in the affected area, allowing only cancer cells to be destroyed.

In a statement, the specialist noted that the procedure is ambulatory and requires fewer sessions than other radiotherapy techniques and therefore produces less impairment to the patient.

This alternative, highlighted Chagoya Gonzalez, reduces the likelihood that cancer cells survive, dividing and growing in the intervals between each radiotherapy session.

He emphasized that compared to chemotherapy, a method that comes to cause loss of appetite, swelling of the mouth, altered taste, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea and even hair loss, brachytherapy does not cause systemic effects.

The doctor stressed that the use of brachytherapy is applied in different malignancies, especially when the patient has cervical cancer, the second leading cause of death of women in Mexico.

Moreover, he added, this method can also be used in other cancers com prostate, cervix, head and neck, skin, breast, uterus, lung, rectum and eye.

Chagoya Gonzalez added that at the institutional level there are four hospitals with this treatment, including the High Specialty Regional Hospital of Ixtapaluca.