Thursday 13 September 2007

Radiation Oncologist Appointment

Had the first appontment with my Radiation Oncologist today who explained how the Radiation Therapy portion of my treatment will work.

I am going to receive "conventional" external beam Ionizing Radiation (X-Rays) using a method called Conformal 3-D. This is where they focus the beam at the tumour area and a small margin (in my case 3cm). They also come in from different directions in order to reduce accidental "treatment" of good brain.

The way radiation therapy is suppoesd to work is quite neat, it disrupts the DNA of the fast reproducing tumour cells while leaving the healthy cells mostly OK. Normal cells are also better at repairing any damage from the radiation than tumour cells. This repairng capability is helped along by breaking up the treatment (fractionation) over 6 weeks.

I will receive 60 Gy (Grays) of radiation which is considered to be the maximum dose that a human can safely take (radiation is cumulative) at 2 Gy a day in 30 sessions for 6 weeks.

In order to plan my treatment I'll have to come in for a planning session next week. This will involve making a mask for me and taking CT scans to position the tumour in relation to the mask.

Likely short term side effects from this treatment are tiredeness, soreness and hair loss around the beam entry points.

I wish this wasn't taking so long, I just want to get going before that little bastard gets much bigger.

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