External radiation burns

I haven't found all that much in regards to burns on the outside of ones body when having IMRT, do I need to worry?
Thanks much.

The cancer center had to change me to a different machine one day and I noticed a sunburn after that one session. Maybe darkened a little over the whole treatment, but that faded.

toward the end of my treatment I was burned. it was a progressive thing. felt like a sunburn with some small blisters.

Thanks for the info, my best friends mom had radiation and got burned really bad. I'm in for only 25 treatments, 40 grays, so hopefully I'll be okay. Plus I tan real easy.

Ldog - likely you'll be just fine.

I have a couple of friends who've been treated for non-PC cancers reporting the sun burn problem.

Tall Allen said...
There is no such thing with modern linacs. The 6 MV X-rays penetrate deeply into the pelvis and leaves negligible dose at the surface. Skin burns only occur when tumors are close to the skin, as with breast cancer. If you experience burns, you may have a rare genetic abnormality.

Good to know, and my friends mom did/does have breast cancer which has spread.

Both times my wife had radiation for breast cancer she had some skin burning. With PCa I had no burning.

I had "sunburns" on both hips after my Proton treatments. It took a few months before they disappeared. I was told to expect it.

I had no real even sunburn effect with IGRT.

I'm doing 15 sessions of RT for my spine, and yes, this is leaving me with a mild "sunburn" effect. RO looked at it, and said it was not significant, but the girls check it daily.

RO warned of a potential minor "sunburn" but nothing after 26 sessions of IM/IGRT!

CAdogsRus said...

ldog said...

CAdogsRus said...
I'm at 19 down, 4 to go. 46 Gy total. No skin irritation or change for me.

Thanks or the info. How are the treatments going? I also noticed in your sig about LDR, are you doing brachy after?
Thx

Sorry for the slow reply. Treatments have been going well, at least well to me. 4 1/2 months of HT with no fatigue and minimal hot flashes that have mostly passed. 21 of 23 IMRT sessions done, some urinary issues (slower flow) that have mostly diminished, but loose stools with diarrhea that has gotten better this week as I have finally decided to use some Imodium to get system back in order. All in all, I'm very happy with my side affects as they seem minimal to me.

I finish IMRT Friday. I'm waiting for the LDR to be scheduled but doc today (at weekly checkup after IMRT) said it should be scheduled soon for somewhere between two to five weeks from now.

The most unpleasant items thus far was the prostate volume study and then the biopsy itself. Everything else has been a big fat nothing burger other than anxiety, which went much lower following making a treatment decision.

I hear ya. The volume study was not pleasant, more, well embarrassing to be honest. Maybe embarrassing isn't the right word, but you get my drift.
My biopsy was no big deal, my urologist at that time really did a great job. The only pain I felt was about 3 hours later and that didn't last all that long.