Higher photon energy in modern radiation therapy leads to a slightly lower skin dose, resulting in a sunburn-like effect rather than severe burns.

“the energy of the photons is higher which means the skin dose is slightly lower so these days patients do still get a sunburn we give them a little uh some free samples of aquafor or they can use an aloe vera plant if they have a just you know your normal type of skin care stuff as opposed to the old days when we were actually treating essentially burn victims with silver sulfa diine and heavy duty narcotics and things like that”