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Worried about getting radiation to the chest soon after spine surgery
Breast Cancer | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (11)Comment receiving replies
@mawmaws Radiation was planned on my right breast for DCIS after lumpectomy. If you google the damage radiation can do to healthy tissue, you will see a lot of possibilities, some say rare occurrences, but the more I investigate some are not as rare as you are led to believe. Of course, cancer is very serious and needs to be slammed! But I think with conditions with lower risk, we should weigh the odds instead of jumping on to the first suggested course of treatments.
Replies to "@mawmaws Radiation was planned on my right breast for DCIS after lumpectomy. If you google the..."
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@sunnydd
These are really difficult decisions.
Cancer cells can still be present after a tumor is removed. The purpose of radiation therapy is to destroy those cells. Surgery alone doesn’t remove every cancerous cell. Radiation disrupts cancer cell DNA at the microscopic level. Surgery removes the tumor mass but not microscopic cells that may be floating around in adjacent tissue. Those cancer cells can invade lymph nodes and surrounding tissue.
If you choose to specifically look up damage information you will find it. There is also massive amounts of information about survival rates. Most importantly you should make the decision based on your personal prognosis. Staging, recurrence risk, cancer type matters. If you have very early stage low risk cancer the five year survival rate may be no different with or without radiation. However, statistically the risk of recurrence may be higher without radiation. Cancer can be cured. So you may prefer to wait to choose treatment in the event of recurrence. It’s a bit like kicking the can down the road. But maybe you will never have to deal with it again. It’s a stinking crap shoot. And for me that’s the most disturbing part.