Some Side Effects of Radiotherapy

Nausea or vomiting:

Some patients find that  they may feel sick (nausa), or sometimes may actually  vomit. This seems like the most common side effects of radiotherapy, since the treatment sites are just close to the stomach.

Fatigue:

External beam radiotherapy is a non-invasive treatment with some side effects, which may last either a short term or long term. Patients who have undergone  weeks of diaotherapy will genrally experience fatigue. The fatigue is usually caused by the self-repairing of the healthy tissues.

Hair loss:

“Having chemotherapy and radiotherapy will cause hair loss.” , this seems has become a common concern of all cancer patients.  Since the treatments will affect the whole body, hair usually begins to fall out after 2-3 weeks. Even takes some time,  hair is supposed to grow back after treatment finishes.  

Changes in the eating habits:

Diet is always the most important part of patients’ rehabilitation. However,  during the treatment period, patients may loss of appitite or just find that their eating habits have been changed, especially  when they are  having radiotherapy to the head or neck area.

Dark skin:

In some condition,  many breast cancer patients may develop a dark skin color as if they are browned by the sun after being treated with radiotherapy. However, a suntan skin usually returns to normal in a   certain time, while in some breast cancer cases, this change in color or even texture of the skin will be permanent.

Delay the breast reconstruction surgery:

Also, radiotherapy has significant potential effects if the patient  wants to have  breast reconstruction surgery. The chest wall skin may become fibrosis  after radiotherapy, which negatively  depletes skin elasticity and makes the tissues difficult to expand. As a result that  patients are advised to  undergo breast reconstruction later after. 

Other side effects that may occur with radiotherapy:

    muscle and joints stiffness

    mild swelling

    tenderness in the lesion area

    lymphedema

    changes of the blood

    dry mouth

    diarrhoea

 a lack of interest in sex

Studies suggest that interventional target therapies may reduce the side effects, because it treats only the affected tumor and  surrounding lesions, and do nearly no harm to the normal tissues.