Radiotherapy here we come ?

Regular readers will have understood the debate we have been having about the application of radiotherapy following chemo 8. In preparation for the discussion with the consultants on Thursday I spent most of last night reading and downloading the most up to date papers on the subject, as much as to ensure I know the right questions to ask on thursday. Fortunatly for me there have been a number of significant studies published since Feb when I did my first research on the treatment. To cut a long story short the modern inverted field highly directed radiotherapy had much lower rates of cancer or heart damage than that seen in the past and it does seem to reduce the relapse rate of the disease by about 10 percent (ie with radiotherapy 90 percent disease free progression vs 80 percent or so for no radiotherapy) the secondary cancer risk seems to be about 2-3 percent so the net benefit is about 8 percent. Unfortunatly there is no 100 percent treatment option that I can tick ! There was a pretty definitive editorial paper in the US Journal of Onocology in March which brings this all together and basically says take the radiotherapy, so it seems like that may be the path. So the discussion on thursday will more be about doses, protection of vital organs, length of treatment etc rather than do we/don't we discussion I was originally expecting.

I shall spend tomorrow night looking into supporting strategies with diet etc to set myself up for going to hospital every day for the next month or so, and dealing with the side effects of the treatment. Apparently the big short term side effect is fatigue and the diet plans can help manage the damage to heart tissue. I think the most difficult thing for me will be the time taken each day going back and forward to the hospital, waiting around, getting the treatment etc. Better get a good book !

The downside of this is I will be stuck in Edinburgh during the school holidays and with daily hospital visits and the fatigue that will constrain what we can do with the time together as a family. Once I know the detials of the treatment plan I will let you all know.

Cheers

Gerry