HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

skipping IGRT treatments

Support Forums
>
Prostate Cancer
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 3/18/2016 6:43 PM (GMT 0)
Hello Again,

I started a course of 35 IGRT treatments Monday March 7....had 9 so far......

Today the clinic had an electrical failure so no treatment, next week, they are closed Thursday and Friday so that will be a 4 day period of no treatment.

I can't find much info on spacing treatments, but seemed to think continuity was important.

Any thoughts?
Posted 3/18/2016 7:01 PM (GMT 0)
Not a problem. You may want to read the following article on patients who skipped treatments:

Patient compliance with radiation therapy schedules

The relevant point for you is:

"Prostate cancer is very slow growing. For certain cancers like some head and neck cancers, the tumor growth is so fast that multiple radiations sessions must be scheduled each day (called hyperfractionation) in order to keep ahead of the high cancer cell repopulation rate. In fact, the repopulation rate increases as radiation progresses for such cancers. In contrast, even high-risk prostate cancers repopulate so slowly that delays of a few days to a week are insignificant. In fact, some treatment schedules for stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) and high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy are a week apart with no apparent loss of efficacy."

- Allen
Posted 3/18/2016 7:23 PM (GMT 0)
My RO discussed that with me. Not a problem, they'll just extend the schedule to get the number of treatments you need.

I was lucky to never miss a treatment or have an equipment problem that caused a skip. There were two scheduled holidays in my treatment plan. Didn't affect the outcome.

Andrew
Posted 3/18/2016 8:12 PM (GMT 0)
I skipped several treatments due to holidays or the machines being offline. I think it's pretty common, although it's frustrating since you just want to be done with it...
Posted 3/18/2016 11:20 PM (GMT 0)
I asked my RO prior to treatment about missing a couple of session if I were to came down with the flu or other emergency. He said it wasn't good, but will make it up adding the missed sessions at the end.

Well, the funny thing is I started my 39 treatments in November, and the treatment center was closed the 2 days for Thanksgiving (Thursday & Friday) and again 2 days for Christmas (Thursday & Friday). So both times I went 4 days without treatment twice. When I asked the RO, he said no problem.
Posted 3/19/2016 12:35 AM (GMT 0)
We all experienced some skips so not a problem. My wife, however, had an aggressive breast cancer and she did 35 days in a row including Saturdays, Sundays, and Christmas.
Posted 3/19/2016 5:56 AM (GMT 0)
Not a problem to miss one, they will add it on at the end. My machine was down once and I missed one for that. I also missed one on my birthday and had to go to a Paul McCartney concert. tongue On my last day, the machine was down and I had to go to another of their clinics about 10 miles away. Kinda of a bummer not being able to ring the bell with all the familiar faces.

Carl
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply