Is it a Coincidence That All the Top Search Results for Radiotherapy Promote Radiotherapy?

ByShaun Snapp

Executive Summary

  • Radiotherapy has provided inferior outcomes since its inception.
  • However, you can’t tell this by all the top Google search results for radiotherapy.

Introduction

This article addresses the accuracy of online information from search engines like Google on radiotherapy.

Go to top

The Top Search Results for Radiotherapy

According to Google, these are the top search results for the term radiotherapy.

  1. Cancer.gov
  2. Mayo Clinic
  3. Cancer Research UK
  4. Cancer.net
  5. NHS.uk
  6. Cleveland Clinic

I found something curious about all of these top-rated pages.

Site #1: Cancer.gov

The article from the Cancer.gov titled Radiation Therapy to Treat Cancer was the only section on the effectiveness of radiotherapy.

How radiation therapy works against cancer

At high doses, radiation therapy kills cancer cells or slows their growth by damaging their DNA. Cancer cells whose DNA is damaged beyond repair stop dividing or die. When the damaged cells die, they are broken down and removed by the body.

Radiation therapy does not kill cancer cells right away. It takes days or weeks of treatment before DNA is damaged enough for cancer cells to die. Then, cancer cells keep dying for weeks or months after radiation therapy ends.

This is very general — and has no provision of rough estimations as to radiotherapy’s effectiveness — only what it can potentially do. As we will see, this very general and lack of detailed explanation is the norm on the top websites with articles on radiotherapy.

Cancer cells are not the only cells dying weeks or months after radiation therapy ends; so do non-cancer cells. I wonder why Cancer.gov left that point out of their explanation. The government funds Cancer.gov as it is part of the NIH. However, the information on the site is entirely sided with the cancer providers. Your tax dollars at work means the government allows the industry to write its articles for them.

Site #2: The Mayo Clinic

The article from the Mayo Clinic titled Radiation Therapy was the only section on the effectiveness of radiotherapy.

Radiation therapy, also called radiotherapy, is a type of cancer treatment. This treatment uses beams of intense energy to kill cancer cells. Radiation therapy most often uses X-rays. But other types of radiation therapy exist, including proton radiation. Modern methods of radiation are precise. They aim beams directly at the cancer while protecting healthy tissues from high doses of radiation.

This last part is a common claim made by radiotherapy.