x
Radiotherapy:
Radiotherapy uses high energy rays to kill cancer cells. It kills the most cancer cells and misses as much healthy lung tissue as possible
Marks are made on your skin during the planning session. You will have a few pinprick tattoos made during planning. The radiographers use them to line up the machine accurately when you have your daily treatment. They also draw some marks in ink on your skin. Don't worry if they wear off a bit as the radiographer can draw them on again.
The lungs are very sensitive to radiation, and so are other areas in the chest, such as your spinal cord. Because of this, doctors are very careful when they plan radiotherapy to the lungs.
External radiotherapy
External radiotherapy treatments only take a few minutes each time. The radiographer will position you on the couch (usually lying down) and make sure that you are comfortable. They may need to dim the lights while they are setting up so they can see the laser guidance beams.
Radiotherapy doesn't hurt. You won't be able to feel it, but you need to keep very still for a few minutes while you have the treatment. You may be asked to breathe in a certain way or hold your breath to reduce your chest movements during the treatment.
Surgery is the most common treatment for stages 1, 2 and 3 non-small cell lung cancer and is sometimes followed by chemotherapy. But your doctor may suggest that you have radiotherapy instead of surgery to try to get rid of the cancer cells. This is called radical radiotherapy and your doctor may suggest it if one or more of the following applies to you
Doctors sometimes give chemotherapy at the same time as radiotherapy. Having chemotherapy and radiotherapy together is called concomitant chemo-radiation or concurrent chemo-radiation.
You may have chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy for stage 3 lung cancers where the cancer has spread into lymph nodes on the opposite side of the chest from the tumour. Chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy is called sequential treatment.
Having radiotherapy after surgery can slightly reduce the chance of the cancer coming back in the lung for some people with early stage lung cancer. This is called adjuvant radiotherapy. You usually only have radiotherapy if your surgeon has not been able to completely remove the cancer. Or you may have it if your surgeon found cancer cells in the lymph nodes close to the lung.
If you have chest pain or a troublesome cough, you may have radiotherapy to help control your symptoms. It can also help if you are coughing up blood. And it can reduce pain if cancer cells have spread into the bone.
Your doctor may suggest that you have radiotherapy to the head. This is because small cell lung cancer can spread to the brain.
Internal radiotherapy is also called brachytherapy or endobronchial therapy. The radiotherapy is given from inside the lung airway. It is sometimes used when a tumour is blocking, or partly blocking, your airway. If an airway is blocked this can make you feel breathless and may cause a particular type of noisy breathing called stridor.
Internal radiotherapy can shrink the blockage to help make your breathing easier and quieter. It can also help to control infections and bleeding caused by the tumour.
You usually have a local anaesthetic and a medicine to make you drowsy called a sedative. Your doctor then puts a long, thin, flexible tube called a bronchoscope either down your nose, or into your mouth and into your windpipe.
This can be a bit uncomfortable, but it doesn't last long. The doctor puts a thin tube called a catheter down the bronchoscope so it is close to the tumour. They then take the bronchoscope out and put a radioactive source down the catheter. The source is a radioactive metal and gives a dose of radiation to a small area around it. The doctor leaves it in place for a few minutes. The treatment does not hurt. The doctor then takes out the radioactive source and catheter. Once the radioactive source is out you are not radioactive so it is safe to be with other people
