Side effects occur because radiotherapy temporarily damages some healthy cells, as well as destroying cancerous ones. Radiotherapy affects different people in different ways and it's difficult to know exactly how you'll react to the treatment. For some people, side effects are mild, while others experience more severe effects. Most side effects of radiotherapy only last for a few days or weeks after treatment has finished.
However, some, such as tiredness or hair loss , can last a few months. Most common side effects of radiotherapy are relatively mild and short-lived. Some are described below. Your skin may become red and sore in the area being treated a few days or weeks into a course of radiotherapy, or for up to a couple of weeks afterwards. Your treatment team will advise about the best way of caring for your skin during treatment. If your skin becomes sore, you should try not to irritate it further.
For example:. You may feel tired both during and after radiotherapy. If you feel tired, make sure you give yourself time to rest, and take naps if necessary.
Tiredness is particularly common towards the end of a course of radiotherapy and can last for some time afterwards. Doctors believe it is due to the body repairing damage to healthy cells.
A shortage of red blood cells anaemia can also contribute to tiredness during radiotherapy. Therefore, blood tests may be required during radiotherapy for some cancers, to ensure you're not becoming anaemic. If you have anaemia, you may need a blood transfusion. Most people aren't sick during radiotherapy. However, some people feel sick during, or for a short time after, their treatment.
If you experience nausea, your doctor may be able to prescribe medication to help control it. Radiotherapy to your abdomen tummy area or pelvic area may make you sick. This can last a few days after your treatment stops. Anti-sickness medication can be taken to help this. If you have difficulty eating, you may find it easier to eat several small meals throughout the day. You can also speak to your radiotherapist, who may refer you to a dietitian nutritional specialist.
Diarrhoea is a common side effect of radiotherapy to the abdomen or pelvic area. It usually starts a few days after treatment begins and gradually gets worse as treatment continues. Medication is available.
After your treatment has finished, diarrhoea should disappear within a few weeks. You should tell your doctor if your symptoms haven't improved after a few weeks, or if you notice any blood in your stools faeces. Hair loss is a common side effect of radiotherapy to your head or neck. Unlike chemotherapy , radiotherapy only causes hair loss in the area being treated. Many people find losing their hair distressing and difficult to cope with.
Talk to your family and friends about how you're feeling, so they can support you. Your treatment team may also be able to offer advice. A few weeks after finishing treatment, your hair should start to grow back. In some cases, the hair grows back a different colour or texture to how it was before. Radiotherapy to the chest can cause the tube through which food passes the oesophagus to become temporarily inflamed, which may cause temporary discomfort when swallowing.
If required, your doctor can prescribe medication to help soothe this. You should avoid eating hot or spicy food and drinking acidic drinks or spirits during this time, because they can aggravate the problem. Having radiotherapy may cause you to temporarily lose interest in sex , particularly if you have other side effects, such as tiredness or nausea, or if you're anxious about your condition or treatment.
Radiotherapy to the vaginal area may cause your vagina to become sore and narrower. Your radiotherapist will tell you how to treat this using a vaginal dilator, which is a device inserted into your vagina to help prevent it narrowing. Having sex regularly after your treatment can also help to prevent your vagina narrowing. If you experience vaginal dryness or pain when having sex, you can use lubricants or ask your GP or radiotherapist to prescribe appropriate medication.
Read more about the effects of radiotherapy on female sex and fertility on the Cancer Research UK website. In men, temporary erectile dysfunction and loss of interest in sex are common side effects of pelvic radiotherapy. Read more about the effects of radiotherapy on male sex and fertility on the Cancer Research UK website. Radiotherapy can sometimes cause your muscles to tighten up and your joints to become stiff in the area being treated. You may also experience uncomfortable swelling in the affected area.
Exercising regularly can help to prevent stiffness. If you have stiff joints and muscles, your doctor or radiotherapist may refer you to a physiotherapist, who will recommend suitable exercises. It's rare to develop severe, long-term side effects as a result of radiotherapy.
Your doctor will discuss your chance of experiencing side effects before you consent to treatment. In women, radiotherapy to the pelvic area exposes the ovaries to radiation. In pre-menopausal women, this may cause early menopause where a woman's monthly periods stop and infertility the inability to get pregnant. This is often very upsetting, particularly for younger women who want to have a family.
Before having treatment, your doctor will discuss all the options and available support with you. Based on the results from this study, the radiation oncology unit at Einstein has instituted a new policy, Dr. Ohri explained. The radiation oncologists can then provide immediate referrals to supportive care, mental health services, transportation assistance, or other resources.
Doing so, Dr. Ohri continued, allows them to more rapidly address these issues and help patients be compliant for the remainder of their treatment course. But equally importantly…we also need to make sure that those advances are available to all of our patients. Future research is needed to identify factors that reliably predict noncompliance before any treatment starts, said Dr. September 30, , by NCI Staff. September 28, , by NCI Staff. September 9, , by NCI Staff. Menu Contact Dictionary Search.
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But there may be a small group of cells that remain in the body. They can start to grow again after a while or when the treatment stops. You can read more about immunotherapy and targeted cancer drugs.
Sometimes cancer can become resistant to cancer drug treatment. Cancers develop from normal cells that have changed or mutated to become cancerous. The mutation happens in the genes of the cell. These gene changes make the cell behave differently to a normal cell. Cancer cells can continue to mutate so that they become more and more abnormal. Some mutations can make the cells resistant to cancer drugs such as chemotherapy, targeted cancer drugs or hormone therapy. You can sometimes have a different type of treatment if this happens.
But sometimes cancers develop resistance to many drugs at the same time. This is called multi drug resistance. Scientists have found a group of genetic mutations that they think can cause drug resistance. These mutations mean that the cancer cell can keep the drugs out.
The resistant cells have high levels of a substance called p-glycoprotein. P-glycoprotein is a protein found in cell walls.
The protein acts as a pump and removes toxins from cells. Cells with high p-glycoprotein levels are very good at keeping cancer drugs out. Researchers have been looking at drug resistance for almost as long as they have used cancer drugs. To make cancer drug treatment more effective, we need to find a way of overcoming resistance. These days, doctors are able to cure many cancers. But some cancers can come back many years after treatment.
So you may find that your doctor is very unwilling to use the word 'cure', even though there is no sign that you have any cancer left.
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