Radiation Therapy

Receiving Treatment

Each time you come in for a treatment, you need to check in at the registration desk. You may also be required to change into a hospital gown before reporting to the treatment room. Depending on the location of your cancer, you will need to lie on a table or to sit in a chair under the treatment machine. Using the marks placed on your skin during the treatment simulation, your radiation therapist positions you and adjusts the radiation equipment to achieve the correct angle for treatment. Plastic or Styrofoam forms may also be used to help you maintain the exact positioning. X-rays are taken and carefully reviewed. After your radiation oncologist approves the set-up, the therapist may mark your skin in the treatment area. These marks serve as guides enabling the technician to precisely duplicate the set-up for subsequent treatments. If needed, special lead shields may be used to help protect normal tissue and organs.

Before turning on the machine, the radiation therapist moves outside the room to the machine's control panel, where you can be seen on a television screen and where you 'can continue to communicate with the therapist over a speaker system. The machine used to administer radiation treatments is large and may make noises as it moves around you, aiming at the cancer from different angles. However, you will probably not see, hear or feel the actual radiation, Although some patients have reported feeling warmth or tingling in the treatment area, you should experience no discomfort.