radiation symbol Radiotherapy Damage radiation symbol
Has anybody suffered tissue or major organ damage as a result of Radiotherapy to treat cancer?
Does this seriously affect your life, being or becoming a major health problem itself?
If the answer is yes, please read on:-
***News about a UK Hyberbaric Oxygen trial***
Introduction Our Story Surgery Options Management Links Update Making Contact
Introduction Back to Top
  • Radiotherapy is a very powerful, valuable tool used to treat cancer. Many of the side effects during therapy stages are reversible once treatment has concluded. However, it can also have devastating permanent effects which may only become apparent some months or even years later due to physical damage caused by the radiation. This possibility is often not discussed at the commencement of the treatment, or even envisaged. Treatment may be so urgent, that damage to other organs is almost inevitable. If there is the luxury of time, then shields could be implanted or organs moved aside for the duration of the treatment.
  • If you have been permanently damaged by radiotherapy and you would like to be in contact with people in similar situations, then please click here to get to our contact page. This provides a link to our online support group. We currently (July 2008) have around 120 members. People interchange their experiences about the ways they have found best to live with the problems caused by radiotherapy injuries. Your experience might have parallels with someone else, or vice-versa.
  • Elsewhere in this site you will find other information and external links about radiotherapy damage and the ways in which people may be helped. 
  • It is has never been our intention to set out to litigate against practitioners for the damage caused, but to provide support to one another in living with the longer term consequences of radiotherapy.
  • The problems are recognised, though sadly not widely enough. Many references now appear on the internet (maybe you got here from an internet search), and cases present increasingly to doctors as people live longer following successful cancer treatment. It is the aim of radiotherapy practitioners to improve techniques to minimise damage to surrounding organs or tissue without compromising the efficacy of the treatment.
  • The main thrust is to gather together experiences from people similarly affected, such that all participants may gain from the measures they may have found useful in dealing with particular aspects of the suffering involved.
  • Cancer specialists and Radiotherapists need to be encouraged to form working groups to study this subject to bring it to greater prominence and to learn how to deal with problems when they occur. Indeed a Doctor known to us here in the UK is one of those working successfully to raise awareness in the profession.
  • We would like to encourage one or more Doctors in the field who recognise radiotherapy damage as a problem, preferably who see patients affected, who would be willing to be involved in this interchange of experiences. This would hopefully benefit them and their patients, and obviously other participants in this contact network.

Back to Top
An important work, a report, commissioned by the National Association for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease (NACC), involving gastroenterologists, specialising in radiotherapy damage, together with oncologists, specialist and generalist charities, together with important input from patients was completed in April 2006. Click here for the report *. The same link can also be found on our Links page.
* Requires Adobe Reader. Get Adobe Reader
Click here for our contact and support group Back to Top
Introduction Our Story Surgery Options Management Links Update Making Contact

© www.late-effects-radiotherapy.co.uk Updated 28 February 2010 Document made with KompoZer
Search Engine Submission and Optimization Add URL Pro - Search Engine Submission and Optimization Services

Dual Drill

Free Web Counter