Nursing care for women with gynecologic cancer receiving radiotherapy: current updates

BackgroundApproximately 36% of all cancer patients in Korea receive radiotherapy, a key modality of cancer treatment alongside surgery and chemotherapy.Diverse therapeutic techniques have resulted from advances in radiological technology and treatment devices, contributing to the improvement of the quality of treatment and patients' quality of life.According to 2022 data from the Korea Institute of Radiological Medical Sciences, 7.8% of female patients who underwent radiotherapy in 2019 received treatment for gynecologic cancer.Notably, approximately 98% of brachytherapy procedures were conducted to treat gynecologic cancer [1].Radiotherapy for gynecologic cancer, which can involve both teletherapy and brachytherapy, plays a pivotal role in improving treatment outcomes because it targets not only the early stages of the cancer but also advanced lesions for radical, adjuvant, and palliative purposes.This article explores recent developments in radiotherapy, with a particular focus on radiotherapy for gynecologic cancer, and discusses acute and chronic adverse events that may occur during treatment, as well as interventions. Latest trends in radiotherapyRadiotherapy aims to maximize treatment effectiveness and minimize side effects by primarily irradiating tumor tissues and limiting radiation exposure to the surrounding normal tissues.Radiotherapy technology has advanced dramatically over the last 20 years, and the effectiveness of concomitant chemoradiotherapy treatment has been proven in a substantial number of studies as presented in a recent systematic review [2].Radiotherapy initially involved treatment in a flat, two-dimensional (2D) plane based on 2D imaging centered around tumors.Subsequently, three-dimensional (3D) conformal radiotherapy became available; this method models tumors and the surrounding tissues in three dimensions using computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, enabling more precisely targeted treatment.High-precision radiotherapy procedures, such as intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), respiratory-gated radiotherapy, image-guided radiotherapy, and stereotactic radiotherapy, emerged in the 2000s.Active research is currently underway in the field of concomitant chemoradiotherapy, which combines radiotherapy with cancer immunotherapy [3].Furthermore, particle therapies using protons and heavy ion particles, which are recognized for their higher treatment effectiveness and fewer side effects compared to traditional high-energy X-ray therapies Issues and Perspectives