Internal Radiation

BNT

My mom will have her 4th and last carbo/taxol administered tomorrow. 3 weeks from then the doctor wants to start internal radiation. He mentioned 6 weeks of internal radiation. Is that normal? Looked like a lot of sessions. Any guidance is appreciated. 

Kaleena

Do you mean brachytherapy?  

Do you mean brachytherapy?   I had 3 but it’s up to the doctor.  It doesn’t take long for the treatment.  Very quick.  The first appointment is the longest becside they do the fitting And markings.  

MoeKay

Internal vs. External Radiation

Hi BNT,

Since something sounded strange about the six weeks of internal radiation you mentioned in your post, I went back to your July 10, 2018 post where you discussed your mom's treatment plan.  In that post you said that your mom would be getting "6 weeks of daily 10-15 min of radiation."  What you described in your July 10 post sounds more like external radiation, not internal.  When I had internal radiation back in 1999, I received LDR (low dose) which involved two days in isolation in the hospital.  Since then, LDR has for the most part been abandoned in favor of HDR (high dose), which typically involves several outpatient treatments at one-week intervals.  My external radiation consisted of five weeks of daily (Mon.-Fri.) treatments, each of which took a few minutes. 

I would recommend that you check with your mom's radiation oncologist to confirm what type of radiation she will be receiving (external, internal, or both), the number of treatments, and how long each treatment should take. 

 

janaes

I agree with moeKay. I would

I agree with moeKay. I would look into this further with your doctor. I does sound like you are doing external radiatio. I did three sesions of internal radiation also called bracytherapy.  It only took three weeks. I did one session a week. If i remember right many of the ladies on this site had it similar.  You also may want to look up bracytherapy in the older posts and read other peoples experiences. It might help.

janae

BNT

Thanks for the feedback ...

Thanks MoeKay, Thanks janae. That makes sense to me. 6 weeks looked too long a duration for internal radiation. The medical onco who took care of the chemo told me this and I did reconfirm with him about the internal vs external radiation.

My understanding is that internal is more for taking care of the cancer not getting in from the point of surgery where the uterus was removed and move into the vagina by chance if something still remained. The external is more from the perspective of covering a bigger area in the pelvis and/or abdomen.

We need to visit the doctor again and I will ask him again - maybe he is just going to refer us to another radiation specialist who will likely give the actual plan. 

The cancer was found in one of the 17 lymph nodes. So there maybe a cause to do both internal and external.

Will update as I find more.

 

Thanks again!!..