By Jimmy Down

A new report says that children who are treated with radiation therapy for neck and head cancers are at higher risk of stroke and other cerebrovascular disorders.  New media often does not report the adverse effects of radiation treatment on vascular disease and heart disease although it is unknown that radiation is a cancer causing agent.

Sonia Partap, MD, MS,  of  Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA reported in Seminars in Pediatric Neurology online 25 May 2012 that radiotherapy for pediatric cancer patients increased risk of cerebrovascular disease from large-vessel vascular injury, stroke, moyamoya, mineralizing microangiopathy, to stroke-like migraine

Partap said radiation was commonly used in the past to treat blood borne cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma and neck and brain cancers and radiotherapy remains the mainstay of treatment for highly malignant cancers of head and neck and some primary central nervous system cancers.

Radiation is still commonly used to treat all types of cancers.  Although this treatment can temporarily get the tumors under controlled or shrunken, it can cause severe complications including secondary cancers such as leukemia and skin cancers among other disorders.