Doctors may recommend this therapy in combination with others such as surgery and chemotherapy.
Side effects to radiation treatment for breast cancer.
You won t lose the hair on your head.
However breast fibrosis can also be long term side effect of radiotherapy.
The main short term side effects of external beam radiation therapy to the breast are.
They may start during or right after treatment and last for.
Mild to moderate fatigue.
They re usually gone within a few weeks after treatment ends.
Side effects tend to be most pronounced toward the end of your radiation treatment.
Early and late effects of radiation therapy.
Treatments can cause a variety of side effects from nausea and hot flashes to hair loss and joint pain.
Common side effects during treatment may include.
You may hear your doctor refer to it as breast fibrosis or glandular atrophy or radiation fibrosis syndrome rfs.
Learn more about breast cancer treatments and how to manage their side effects.
There are two kinds of radiation side effects.
The most common early side effects are fatigue feeling tired and skin changes.
After your sessions are complete it may be several days or weeks before side effects clear up.
Nausea is rare with radiation therapy to the breast.
Early side effects such as nausea and fatigue usually don t last long.
In this case breast fibrosis is a direct result of radiation damaging your skin s elasticity.
These side effects tend to be short term mild and treatable.
Many people who get radiation therapy have fatigue.
Radiation not only kills or slows the growth of cancer cells it can also affect nearby healthy cells.
Not everyone experiences side effects of radiation.
Swelling in the breast skin changes in the treated area similar to a sunburn redness skin peeling darkening of the skin.
Damage to healthy cells can cause side effects.
Rare short or long term side effects.
However you may lose some hair under your arm or on the breast or chest area getting radiation this may be a concern for some men with breast cancer.
Breast cancer treatments include surgery chemotherapy radiation hormonal therapies and more.
Early side effects happen during or shortly after treatment.
Many patients are surprised to discover that having radiation therapy is less difficult than they expected though the radiation used to damage cancer in your body can also damage healthy cells.
