Radon therapies

View into a radon healing cave

In a radon treatment, radioactive radon is applied to people for medicinal purposes.

Patients are exposed to a high concentration of radon for a short period to alleviate pain for several months and so to reduce their use of painkillers for a certain period.

Radon therapies are mainly used for rheumatic diseases. These are chronic inflammatory diseases of the joints or spine, such as ankylosing spondylitis, and chronic degenerative diseases of the joints or spine, i.e. arthrosis.

Weighing up risks and benefits

Radon applications are used only when they are necessary from a medical point of view. The prescribing doctor must weigh the benefit of pain alleviation against the risk that the radon causes for the patient. The risks of the radon treatment must be compared with the risks of alternative treatment methods (for example with the possible side effects when patients take painkillers over a long period).

Radon applications are not advised as spa treatments.

Treatment methods

There are several treatment methods:

• Radon healing adits, in which patients are exposed for a few hours to an atmosphere with a high radon concentration (around ten treatments of around one hour duration per treatment) and absorb radon trough the skin and trough the lung by breathing.
• Radon baths, in which patients bathe in radon-rich water and absorb radon mainly through the skin.
• Radon air baths respectively radon steam baths, where patients sit in a covered tub in radon gas respectively radon steam and absorb radon through the skin.
• Radon waters, where patients drink spring water with high radon concentrations and absorb radon through the gastro-intestinal system.

Risks

The benefits and risks of radon therapy are controversial: Radon concentrations in radon healing caves are extremely high. Since the patients are exposed to this radon concentration only for a short time, however, their risk of developing lung cancer increases only slightly as a result of the treatment. But even this increase in risk is only justified if a corresponding medical benefit is to be expected.

If radon is absorbed mainly through the skin and/or through the gastro-intestinal system during bathing or drinking, the radiation-related risk of contracting lung cancer is significantly lower than in radon galleries because only small quantities of radon reaction products are inhaled.

Since employees at workplaces in radon spas and radon healing adits are exposed to radon more permanently than patients, their exposure to radon is regularly checked and registered in order to protect them from radon at work.