How Often Will You Receive Radiotherapy Treatment?

Following a diagnosis of cancer or a benign tumour that requires radiotherapy to treat, most people will have a lot of questions and uncertainty about what to expect when it comes to the next steps of their treatment.

For many people, there will be quite a few changes to their lifestyle, but your cancer multidisciplinary team will be there to help manage all of your needs and ensure that you receive the best possible treatment based on decades of evidence and expertise.

In a lot of cases, the primary treatment will be doses of radiotherapy provided every weekday for a set number of weeks, with breaks taking place during weekends.

In most cases, you will receive short daily treatments using radiation scheduled around your other priorities, although this can vary depending on the type of treatment you are having.

Here are the reasons why radiotherapy is provided on a daily basis, why there might be exceptions to this and what to expect throughout your course of treatment at our clinic.

Why Is Radiotherapy Administered Every Day?

In the vast majority of cases, your radiotherapy team will provide small doses of radiation that build up over the total course of treatment to gradually kill cancer cells whilst preserving as much healthy tissue as possible.

This is often known as fractional radiation because the total dose of radiation was traditionally split into fractions of equal intensity, although most clinics today will typically describe a course of treatment in terms of visits to a hospital or clinic.

There are a lot of reasons for this, but by far the most important is that it is a much safer and more effective way of providing radiotherapy treatment.

The pioneering radiotherapist Henri Coutard developed what was known at the time as the “protracted-fractional method” after he found that radiation administered over time was more effective at killing cancer cells without the often dangerous side effects of acute doses of radiation.

A beneficial side effect of this is that fractional radiotherapy treatment is painless, quick and will allow people to get on with their day and get everything done that they need to.

The standard dosing schedule is five daily doses a week administered in sessions every weekday, with a break at weekends to allow the body to recover.

Are There Any Exceptions To This?

In many cases, cancer treatment is personalised and tailored to meet the needs of the person receiving treatment. Your treatment plan will take into account your health, any existing conditions, the stages of cancer and where it is located.

Most of the time, a daily schedule of radiotherapy over the course of between two and eight weeks is the most appropriate option, but this is not always the case and one of the main focuses of research in the field of radiotherapy concerns alternative treatment schedules.

Some cancer types, including those that affect the head and neck, will often have twice-daily treatments, typically administered at least six hours apart, which allows for more recovery time by dividing the dose further.

Accelerated fractionation works on the same principle but instead of following the same schedule, as many doses as possible are given as quickly as is safe, which may include weekend treatments to ensure someone is treated as quickly as possible.

Conversely, some types of cancer are treated using fewer radiotherapy sessions but with significantly higher doses of radiation.

This is most notably seen with stereotactic radiosurgery (often known as Gamma Knife), which is typically a single session of treatment that can take up to four hours or more to complete.

Some other cancers can be treated in a similar way or with higher doses provided every other day over a shorter course of treatment. Whether this is possible will depend a lot on the type of cancer and where it is located.

Finally, palliative radiotherapy intended to relieve symptoms is typically given less often, as the goal is not to destroy the cancer but to shrink it in order to relieve symptoms.

What Should You Expect From Radiotherapy Sessions?

A radiotherapy session is typically very short, with the total amount of time you will spend in the clinic ranging from 15 minutes to an hour, although only a small amount of that will be spent undergoing radiotherapy.

The preparation, which typically involves changing into a hospital gown and moving into position to ensure that the radiation beam is precisely positioned, will often take longer than the treatment itself, which usually only takes a few minutes.

You will need to keep as still as possible, although you should breathe normally. It will otherwise look and feel like a medical scan and is typically painless.

Our team will guide you through every stage and ensure that you’re comfortable during each visit. Contact us for more information.