Worried about getting radiation to the chest soon after spine surgery

Hi, @mawmaws - I moved your post about radiation soon after spine surgery to both the Mayo Clinic Connect Breast Cancer group and the Spine Health group, where it was originally posted. This will help more Connect members see your question and invite responses from people with experience in either area who may be able to help.

What is your biggest concern right now about what might happen to your esophagus and your aortic valve if you have radiation soon?

@lisalucier i’m worried about having problems, swallowing or damaging my esophagus that I would need to have medication that I’m not able to take because I have so many allergies. I’m afraid I couldn’t be treated. And I’m worried it could damage my aorta and caused problems.

@mawmaws, I can understand your concerns. These are important concerns to discuss with your radiation oncologist. Be sure they understand your fears. They can share the pros and cons of treatment. They will explain how they administer radiation, including what ways they protect the heart and esophagus.

Don't go into treatment scared. Ask your questions so you can have confidence in the care you are getting.

mawmaws, Look up DIBH (deep inspiration breath hold) method, and ask your radiation oncologist if they can do this if you have to have the treatment. I had similar fears and ran across this tidbit of information that might be helpful. I ultimately decided to skip radiation myself.

@sunnydd thanks for the information I will ask and look this up. Where were you about to get radiation on your body but part? And why did you skip it? Did you have other methods to help you? That’s my problem is I don’t

@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.

@mawmaws

Advanced eternal beam radiation systems are able to shape radiation doses tightly to tumors while protecting healthy surrounding tissue. Ask your radiation oncologist what type of equipment they use for radiation therapy.

These targeted systems use a very tightly defined area and do not radiate outside those parameters. Much of the information you see about damage to surrounding tissue and body structures is extremely outdated.

I had stage 3 breast cancer. I also have asthma. I was worried about lung damage. The scans post radiation showed zero damage. This is because my hospital had the most up to date equipment - a linear accelerator.

If your treatment facility has old equipment check to see if another location has linear accelerators or linacs. Radiation therapy works. That’s why it is used. Cancer can be cured. I have family members who lived to their mid 90s after receiving radiation for cancer. Please make an informed decision with your oncology team rather than being guided by the opinions of nonprofessionals.

@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.

@dmr4ever thanks and I am soaking it all in. You have some good points.

@dmr4ever Unfortunately, there is a two sides of the radiation situation. I have an aunt that has been going through breast cancer like me. She had chemo,radiation and took pills to suppress hormone 5 years. She said she would never do radiation again. She has permanent lung damage from radiation she had it done a few years ago. A girl from my cancer group had radiation she’s on oxygen from damage to her lungs that’s the reason I posted being worried about my other organs. Because I have another condition and I cannot take medications like everyone else to help whatever gets damaged. I have multiple chemical sensitivity, Alpha gal, which a lot of medication‘s flag for anaphylactic to treat the cancer. When I went to the appointment with the radiologist he showed me a drawing said they would pinpoint where the cancer is showed me a drawing with rings that go around the cancer about 5 rings he said each ring represents radiation, the radiation does spread out around where they’re treating but the further you go out the less the radiation so the first ring is the thickest it less and less till with each one of these rings then it stops, that’s with pinpointing machine at least that’s what they told me. My husband is getting radiation for prostate cancer . He developed symptoms after the 2nd treatment not able to urinate had to put him on pills so he could. I realize radiation is supposed to kill cancer cells but it still damages your immune system and other things if it didn’t affect anything, but cancer cells a person wouldn’t get super tired after having radiation? Unfortunately I am not able to have any chemo or take pills that everybody takes. I have a reoccurrence came back 3 years to the date. I had a doctor that told me the same thing one of the other members on here said stop reading get off the Internet and she left me with a positive margin!! now I’m devastated gone to my spine and I’ve had a 6 hour excruciating very serious surgery on my spine. Had to sign papers because I had a possibility of going blind, biting end of my tongue off, or breaking my teeth during the surgery,. I had problems with my eyes swelling for a while, but they’re OK. I had a great spine surgeon lucky with that anyway I believe my breast cancer surgeon seeded cancer under my arm when she cut the cancer out of my breast then went under my arm with same knife with cancer cells on it after cutting out two cancer tumors making a second cut under my arm where there was no cancer took out 7 lymph nodes, under where she took, the nodes out is exactly where it returned and then spread to my spine. I pray every day for a miracle God will heal my spine. my surgeon wanted me to have radiation on my spine he said he cut out as much as he could but he can’t remove the cells it was very radical surgery. Miracle he could cut cancer all the way around my spinal cord and roll it back. Removed 3 sections of lamina parts, 50% of my T5-6 vertebrae that collapsed, about 3 inches of my pedicle bone, 3V shaped bones with cancer, remove the faucet, soft tissue tumor, cancer all throughout spine,he said my bones were crumbling in his hand I had a Lot of cancer there. I had one little spot on T6 in my spine February 2024 the radiologist didn’t mention it in report so I didn’t know about it till almost a year later January 2025 when another radiologist put it in his report said it had been there since February 2024 by then it had gotten worse if I had known year earlier, I might be in a better situation right now. I have two rods, 10 screws, putty, magnet holding my spine together. I would love to think I could have that section radiated and not have problems with my other organs to give me more time. I’m a basket case I don’t know what to do! the doctors, hospital, radiologist, have made mistakes caused me to be where I am right now. so I’m a leery about trusting anyone in the medical field. I did have a really good feeling about the surgery he is very good person on top of a Great doctor and he did all he could for me removed all the cancer he could without paralyzing me