What are the late effects of irradiation?
Irradiation initially leads to an acute inflammatory reaction of the surrounding tissue. However, the inflammation can become chronic over time and lead to a permanent change. This can lead to chronic intestinal problems.
Medication is available to reduce the diarrhoea and pain. In addition to the intestinal problems, incontinence is also possible. Radiation can weaken the sphincter muscles.
Thus, during physical exertion or when coughing, sneezing and laughing, an involuntary urine leakage can occur. Specific therapy can improve or even cure urinary incontinence. For this reason, you should contact your treating physician at an early stage to find a suitable therapy.
Another late consequence of radiation therapy is erectile dysfunction. Although the risk of suffering from erectile dysfunction after radiation therapy is lower than after surgery, it is still present. There are various drug and mechanical therapy options available.
What are the alternatives to irradiation?
Various treatment options are available. However, these depend on the stage of the cancer. For this reason, you should decide together with your doctor which therapy seems to be the most sensible for you.
In the case of localised tumours that are slow-growing, you can wait and see how the tumour grows. The patient must have regular check-ups to detect any progress as early as possible. This procedure is called Active Surveillance.
This is intended to avoid unnecessary side effects that can result from a therapy. If the tumour is growing rapidly but there are no metastases yet, surgery can be performed as an alternative to radiation. Nevertheless, it may be that radiation is necessary after the operation.
This depends on whether the tumour could be completely removed (so-called R0 resection). In the case of a metastasized tumor, hormone therapy is used. This is usually administered in combination with a chemotherapeutic agent to increase its effectiveness.
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