- Radiation therapy, also known as radiotherapy, uses radiation to destroy cancer cells. Instead of the low doses of radiation used in X-rays, high doses are used to shrink cancer cells, kill them, and keep them from spreading to other tissue.
- When you have radiation therapy, you become part of a team that works together to treat your condition. Other members of your team include a radiation oncologist that prescribes the amount of radiation needed, a nurse-practitioner to order tests and treat radiotherapy effects, a radiation therapist to give you treatments, and a radiation nurse who takes care of you during radiotherapy sessions.
- There are three ways to do radiotherapy. External radiation therapy targets cancer cells using a machine outside your body five days a week for about six weeks. Implant radiation therapy is used by inserting a small tube to put radiation directly into your breast. Brachytherapy uses surgery to place an inflatable balloon in your breast and a catheter to put radiation into the inflated balloon twice a day for a week.
- According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, research shows that women who have a lumpectomy followed by radiation therapy live as long as women who have a total mastectomy. Radiation therapy isn't painful while you're having it and side effects can be managed by your radiation therapy team.
- Though some people don't experience side effects from radiation therapy, many people feel fatigue, pain, weakness, and nausea. Your arm can swell and you could have problems moving your shoulder. Radiation can destroy healthy cells as well as cancerous ones, so you should notice effects such as swelling, rash, fever, chest pain, constipation, diarrhea, cough, bruising, bleeding, dizziness, and depression and report them to your radiotherapy team so medicine can be prescribed.
