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Asked by to Becky, Clara, Daniel, Simon, Thomas on 13 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
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Thomas Elias Cocolios answered on 13 Mar 2014:
Lasers are frequently used to treat skin cancers. Their radiation is however absorbed in the superior layers of the skin and would not reach a tumour inside the body.
To treat those, it is best to use chemicals that carry radioactive isotopes. They target cancer cell and bring the radioactive nuclei there, who destroy the cancer cells with their nuclear radiation.
Finally, you have ion beam cancer treatment where you accelerate beams of protons or heavier particles to specific energies that are tuned to deposit the most energy at a chosen position. This form of treatment is selected, e.g., for eye tumours which cannot be operated on or reached by chemicals.
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Clara Nellist answered on 13 Mar 2014:
Thomas pretty much has this one covered. He’s right that lasers can help to kill cancer tumours on the surface of the body, but if the cancer is further into the body, they won’t be used. They are however very useful in testing the equipment we use for cancer treatment, such as the detectors that are used in medical scanners. We want the scanner to be as accurate as possible, meaning the images that we get from them should be really clear, so we need our detectors to be really good. We can use lasers because we know exactly how our detector *should* work when we shine the laser onto it and we can see if we’re right.
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