Radiation therapy side effects

Posted by nole88 @nole88, Sep 15 7:26am

Does prostate cancer radiation therapy cause brain fog or memory loss? My husband finished 39 treatments on August 16th. No real side effects during treatments. This past Thursday, September 12 he experienced transient global amnesia. CT and MRI were good and no signs of dementia. Has anyone had neurological issues after the treatments? If so, how are you doing? Did everything return to normal mental functioning? Appreciate any information. Thank you.

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bens1 | @bens1 | Sep 19 7:19am

In reply to @johnoclark "Avoid radiation. Get robotic prostatectomy." + (show)

@johnoclark you might be surprised at the advances they have made with types of radiation machines. Check out the mirage randomized trial results.

bens1 | @bens1 | Sep 19 7:23am

@nole88 I had 5 radiation session finishing in 2023 with no brain fog. I would think as others have commented, that some form of medication might have caused the brain fog. What does the radiation oncologist say about it?

kujhawk1978 | @kujhawk1978 | Sep 19 8:47am

I have three different rounds of radiation treatment:

March 2015 SRT 39 IMRT 70.3 Gya
July 2017 WPLN 25 IMRT 45 Gya
April 2023 SBRT 5x8Gya

No side effects, in these 10+ years, I have not seen discussion in any of the online forums related to the cognitive side effects you describe. Those of us on ADT can testify to the cognitive issues with that treatment.

The 39 treatments you describe sound a lot like SRT, did his medical team add ADT to it?

Kevin

klekabe | @klekabe | Sep 19 9:07am

I had 31 days of radiation with no side effects at all during the therapy time. I also had hormone suppression medication. Have not had any problem close to what your husband is experiencing.

johnoclark | @johnoclark | Sep 19 10:02am

In reply to @bens1 "@johnoclark you might be surprised at the advances they have made with types of radiation machines...." + (show)

Thanks. How do I check them out? Is there a website?

nole88 | @nole88 | Sep 19 1:00pm

In reply to @kujhawk1978 "I have three different rounds of radiation treatment: March 2015 SRT 39 IMRT 70.3 Gya July..." + (show)

No just the radiation. It's probably not the radiation, just something that happened at the same time.

nole88 | @nole88 | Sep 19 1:01pm

In reply to @bens1 "@nole88 I had 5 radiation session finishing in 2023 with no brain fog. I would think..." + (show)

We're contacting him but I doubt it's related. Thanks

bens1 | @bens1 | Sep 19 1:01pm

In reply to @johnoclark "Thanks. How do I check them out? Is there a website?" + (show)

@johnoclark
I have provided a few links that may be helpful. Ask your radiation oncologists about the margins the machines use as they do impact health tissue. I had 5 hypo fractional treatments on the MRIdian machine but as you will read, studies are showing that 2 hypo fractional treatments may do the job. Where I was treated, they had both the Proton radiation and the Mridian machine available locally for me.

The link below is to Elekta's MRI guided MRlinac machine. You will also see information on four MRI guided machine studies: the Mirage, Momentum Hermes and Erect. These should give you a good feel for the advantages of an MRI guided radiation machine that is real time vs fused images.
https://www.elekta.com/products/radiation-therapy/unity/prostate/
The link below is to information regarding the Mridian machine as explained by UCLA Health regarding the MRI guided MRlinac machine.
https://www.uclahealth.org/cancer/cancer-services/radonc/cutting-edge-devices/viewray
The link below is to Proton therapy radiation as explained by MD Andersen
https://www.mdanderson.org/patients-family/diagnosis-treatment/care-centers-clinics/proton-therapy-center/what-is-proton-therapy.html
Once I understood the issue of margins and real time MRI guidance, the other radiation machines that did not have real time imaging fell off my list of possibilities. Proton stayed on as one of two final choices for me because of its dosimetry calculation of the Proton energy stopping at a specific level though the energy in other ways was still moving and the margins that I discussed at the time were 3-5 mm vs 2mm with real time imaging.