Radiation therapy side effects

This information will help you get ready for radiation therapy to your head and neck. It will help you know what to expect before, during, and after your treatment. It will also help you learn about side effects and how to care for yourself during treatment. Read through this resource before you start radiation therapy. Use it as a reference in the days leading up to your treatments so you can get ready as much as possible. Bring this resource to your simulation appointment and all future appointments with your radiation oncologist. You and your radiation therapy team will refer to it throughout your treatment. Back to top About radiation therapy Radiation therapy uses high-energy beams to treat cancer. It works by damaging the cancer cells and making it hard for them to reproduce. Your body is then naturally able to get rid of the damaged cancer cells. Radiation therapy also affects normal cells. However, your normal cells are able to repair themselves in a way that cancer cells can’t. You will have a type of radiation therapy called external beam radiation. During your treatments, a machine will aim beams of radiation directly at the tumor. The beams will pass through your body and destroy cancer cells in their path. You will not see or feel the radiation. Radiation therapy takes time to work. It takes days or weeks of treatment before cancer cells start to die. They will keep dying for weeks or months after treatment ends. You can have radiation therapy before, during, ...

What is Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy and how is it used? Radiation therapy, including IMRT, damages the DNA and stops cancer cells from dividing and growing, thus slowing or stopping tumor growth. In many cases, radiation therapy is capable of killing all of the cancer cells, thus shrinking or eliminating tumors. Radiation therapy may be used in conjunction with surgery (adjuvant radiation). In this scenario, radiation targets potential microscopic disease after surgery. Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is an advanced mode of high-precision radiotherapy that uses computer-controlled linear accelerators to deliver precise radiation doses to a malignant tumor or specific areas within the tumor. IMRT allows for the radiation dose to conform more precisely to the three-dimensional (3-D) shape of the tumor by modulating—or controlling—the intensity of the radiation beam in multiple small volumes. IMRT also allows higher radiation doses to be focused on the tumor while minimizing the dose to surrounding normal critical structures. Treatment is carefully planned by using 3-D computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance (MRI) images of the patient in conjunction with computerized dose calculations to determine the dose intensity pattern that will best conform to the tumor shape. Typically, combinations of multiple intensity-modulated fields coming from different beam directions produce a customized radiation dose that maximizes tumor dose while also minimizi...

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Radiation therapy uses high-energy rays (such as x-rays) or particles (such as photons, electrons, or protons) to kill cancer cells. When is radiation therapy used? If a tumor is very large or is on an area of the skin that makes it hard to remove with Radiation is also useful when combined with other treatments. For example, radiation can be used after surgery as an adjuvant (additional) treatment to kill any small areas of remaining cancer cells that may not have been visible during surgery. This lowers the risk of cancer coming back after surgery. Radiation may also be used to help treat skin cancer that has spread to lymph nodes or other organs. How is radiation therapy given? When radiation therapy is used to treat skin cancers, the radiation is focused from outside the body onto the tumor. This is often done using a beam of low-energy x-rays ( superficial radiation therapy) or electrons ( electron beam radiation). These types of radiation don’t go any deeper than the skin. This helps limit the side effects to other organs and body tissues. Getting radiation treatment is much like getting an x-ray, but the radiation is stronger and aimed more precisely at the cancer. The procedure itself is painless. Each treatment lasts only a few minutes, although the setup time – getting you into place for treatment – takes longer. Possible side effects of radiation Side effects of radiation are usually limited to the area getting radiation, and can include: • Skin irritation, rang...

What is proton therapy? Proton therapy, also known as proton beam therapy, is a radiation treatment that precisely delivers a beam of protons to disrupt and destroy tumor cells. Compared with traditional radiation, protons have unique properties that allow doctors to better target radiation to the size and shape of the tumor. The proton beam kills the tumor cells and spares more of the surrounding healthy tissue. What is proton therapy used for? While proton therapy is most often used to treat cancer, it can also be used to treat noncancerous (benign) tumors in children and adults. Proton beams can be used to treat tumors composed of different types of cells and located in different parts of the body; some examples include: • • • • • • • • • • Tumors that come back and need repeat courses of radiation (reirradiation) • • Eye cancer, such as Researchers are studying the potential benefits of proton beam therapy on different kinds of cancers. How Proton Beam Therapy Works Proton beam therapy works by disrupting the tumor’s DNA and destroying tumor cells. Protons are separated from hydrogen atoms and sped up in a particle accelerator such as a synchrotron or cyclotron. A special device — usually a gantry that can rotate 360 degrees — uses a large magnet to focus the stream of protons into a thin beam, just 5 millimeters wide. The magnet then guides the beam and directs it at the tumor from multiple angles, as the gantry rotates around the patient. The energy within the proton...

Internal radiation is also called brachytherapy. A radioactive implant is put inside the body in or near the tumor. Getting the implant placed is usually a painless procedure. Depending on your type of cancer and treatment plan, you might get a temporary or a permanent implant. What is internal radiation therapy? Internal radiation therapy (brachytherapy) allows a higher dose of radiation in a smaller area than might be possible with external radiation treatment. It uses a radiation source that’s usually sealed in a small holder called an implant. Different types of implants may be called pellets, seeds, ribbons, wires, needles, capsules, balloons, or tubes. No matter which type of implant is used, it is placed in your body, very close to or inside the tumor. This way the radiation harms as few normal cells as possible. • During intracavitary radiation, the radioactive source is placed in a body cavity (space) , such as the rectum or uterus. • With interstitial radiation, the implants are placed in or near the tumor, but not in a body cavity. How are implants placed in the body? The implant procedure is usually done in a hospital operating room designed to keep the radiation inside the room. You’ll get anesthesia, which may be either general (where drugs are used to put you into a deep sleep so that you don’t feel pain) or local (where part of your body is numbed). One or more implants is put into the body cavity or tissue with an applicator, usually a metal tube or a plas...

Radioactive iodine therapy has been used in the To learn more about this highly effective and well-established tool, we spoke with What is radioactive iodine therapy? Radioactive iodine therapy is a radiopharmaceutical. It involves the use of radioactive isotopes — in this case, Iodine-131 (I-131) — to diagnose or treat disease. How is radioactive iodine therapy used? Currently, radioactive iodine therapy is only used to treat hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid gland) and certain types of thyroid cancer. It’s also used to help determine the root causes of hyperthyroidism and to see if certain thyroid cancers have spread to other parts of the body. How does radioactive iodine therapy work? The thyroid cell’s job is to make hormones that govern various body processes, such as temperature regulation and metabolism. There are two different types: follicular and para-follicular. Follicular thyroid cells need iodine to do their job, so they take it from the foods we eat. And when someone has a thyroid disorder, we can often use that same mechanism to diagnose and treat it. So, in a sense, radioactive iodine therapy was the first true Before administering radioactive iodine therapy, we may have patients follow a When used for diagnosis, very small amounts of radioactive iodine help highlight the areas where cancerous thyroid cells are on scans. When we’re using radioactive iodine therapy to treat thyroid cancer or hyperthyroidism, higher doses are required. The iodine molecules ...