What is the difference between electron treatment and kilovoltage treatment?

Question

Eg the physics of the particles, skin sparing, penetration etc

Answer 1

Dear Ioz
There are two types of PHOTON treatment:

1) Extrahigh voltage Xray (HVXRay) machine (150keV)
2) Linear Accelerator (of 4000 keV electrons) machine(LinAc). This is not electron treatment and I am not sure if this is in fact what your question is about.

The LinAc photon energies are very much higher than the HVXRay and tend to spare overlying tissue. Most of the cyto-damage is done at the target tumour and the LinAc beam is scanned to avoid skin damage, which appears as slight sun-burn. Use a skin cream from the hospital to avoid discomfort in skin folds. (aqueous cream or hydrocortisone cream)

The treatment is given over some 5 weeks and delivers an optimum dose to the tumour (25 sessions).