5day radiotherapy

Hi FeKfe and welcome to the board. I had 5 weeks of chemoradiotherapy but that was 5 years ago and I’ve seen a few people on here having shorter sessions recently. The link below seems to say that the shorter term is used for smaller tumours?

https://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/about-bowel-cancer/treatment/radiotherapy/

Chemoradiotherapy can be very successful at shrinking rectal tumours - mine shrank from 4cm to 1cm - which gives the surgeon the best opportunity to get it all away with clear margins.

Hope this helps but please post again if you’ve any questions or concerns

Take care

Karen x

1. Thanks Karen,I read a lot of your stuff in here and found it very helpful. Still my tumour is way bigger (one upmanship!:)) and no chemo part. The Macmillan factsheet doesn't seem to tally with what the oncologist and radiographer told me.

I have rectal cancer. At first I was to have 5 days radiation but then was decided the tumour was to large so went straight onto chemo. So it does seem if possible the 5 day radiation treatment is used hope this helps

Size doesn’t matter on here  FeKfe  I’ve read about tumours up to 10cm on the Bowel Cancer UK Board but the staging is based on how far it’s grown into the bowel wall. Glad that the posts are helping and feel free to ask anything not covered. If you want to give the nurses on here a ring to the run the radiotherapy thing past them then they’re here till 8 on 0808 808 00 00 x

Thank you,xx

Hello FeKfe, 

   I have lower bowel rectum cancer and have had 5 weeks of chemo and radio therapy. My friend also had rectal cancer however had a different care treatment plan.

I would suggest calling your cancer specialist link nurse (if you have one) who can talk it through or your oncologist's secretary and maybe your oncologist can talk it through.

Hope this helps xx 

Hi, I have a 10cm rectal tumour, I had 4 cycles of Capox chemo, and then 5 weeks of chemo radiotherapy, which was fine for first 3/4 weeks, the last 2 weeks was hardcore, to the extent I had to be admitted into hospital for 5 days, got thought it. I’m now on 5/6 weeks recovery before I have scans and see oncologist, to see what they have decided about operations. 
I’m 36, all we can do is listen to doctors, and follow each plan, step by step, day by day. Good luck