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12/02/2013 10:48
Tamarakruse 
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12/02/2013 10:48
Tamarakruse
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Radiation questions
Hello all, I am a 52 yr old female with young children that I need to keep up with. And a year into growing nodules on both feet, an one hand, with a family history of Dupuytrens. After Internet research I have radiation therapy scheduled next week. I think I will do this only on the feet, as other methods seem available for the hands. But, I am realizing that I really don't have very much good specific info. What are the questions I need to be asking the doctor? Does anyone know any radiation dosage info I should be aware of? I would like to think the doctor knows exactly what he is doing and will dose appropriately, but I would like to have some good info, as a sort of check and balance! I assume this is the sort of thing that would be the lower the better?
I have also heard that RT works only when the nodules are active. How can I know this?
Any radiation therapy info on amounts, times, protection, risks, I would greatly appreciate.
Thanks,
Tamara
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12/02/2013 18:26
JohnG 
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12/02/2013 18:26
JohnG
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Re: Radiation questions
Tamarakruse:
What are the questions I need to be asking the doctor? ... Any radiation therapy info on amounts, times, protection, risks, I would greatly appreciate.
Tamara, as Wach suggested, many of your questions might be answered in the info under the "Treatment" tab near the top of this page.
Questions I would ask would start with the "field", i.e., perimeter of the treated region:
* How will the field be determined? Typically this is done by palpation (touching) by a doctor, but many oncologists don't know how to do this.
* How much "margin" will the field include? This means, how much extra border around the diseased tissue.
Besides that, another key question is what protocol will be used for dosage? The most common is 3 Gray per treatment, five treatments the first week, then a couple of months pause, then another give treatments.
Each treatment lasts about one minute, during which you are supposed to hold still. You will probably feel nothing.
Risks include cancer and nerve damage -- you can ask how much the treatment will increase your chance of getting these conditions in your foot later -- I would expect the answer to be something like "tenths of a percent" or maybe "about one percent".
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12/02/2013 21:26
Tamarakruse
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12/02/2013 21:26
Tamarakruse
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Re: Radiation questions
Thank you, John and Wolfgang. This is exactly what I needed for specifics and a starting place to ask the right questions. I didn't remember the specifics on the site, regarding margins and radiation amounts, but I will re-read this also.
Thanks again,
Tamara
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