Patients who undergo spinal surgery or are not suitable for surgery may also receive radiation therapy for spinal tumors.

• Traditional Radiation Therapy: Traditional radiation therapy is a non-invasive treatment that uses a medical linear accelerator to generate X-rays to treat tumors with high-energy radiation. Most curative radiation therapies are fractionated treatments, which utilize the principle that tumor cells are more sensitive to low-dose radiation than normal tissues. By using low-dose radiation repeated multiple times, tumor cells can be killed without causing excessive damage to normal tissues, achieving the goal of cancer treatment.

• Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT): Unlike the long-course fractionated radiation therapy, SBRT involves fewer sessions, typically 1-5 sessions. It is a non-invasive but effective ablative treatment with similar effects to surgery. SBRT delivers a very high dose in a single session (approximately 5-6 times higher than traditional therapy) within a very short treatment period. SBRT is suitable for smaller tumor volumes but requires high precision in respiratory control, image guidance, machine accuracy, and physician experience.

• Proton Therapy: Proton therapy is a novel form of radiation therapy that uses protons instead of photons (X-rays) to treat tumors. Protons have unique physical properties; when they reach the tumor site, they release all of their dosage, resulting in less accumulation of dosage in other normal tissues compared to current photon therapy. This reduces the cumulative dosage in specific areas (such as the heart, lungs, and spinal cord), thereby minimizing treatment-related side effects.