Question about heart damage

amazinggrace7 · October 2012

Hi everyone I am new here... Want to ask a question about the heart damage from radiation.

My RO is doing treatment planning for me. He mentioned if i want to treat internal mammary nodes, there will be 27% of my heart area exposed to the radiation. My understanding is radiation will for sure leave some scar in the heart, but only some poeple (maybe 20%) will get heart disease from that. Is it correct? He wants me to decided whether or not to treat internal mammary nodes.

Is heart involved in the radiation acceptable or normal nowadays? Is 27% a big area? I read about some articles saying radiation a decade ago caused quite a lot heart damage. Wondering if 27% of heart involved will be similar to those cases.

I am under 40 and want to try my best to fight the disease. Based on my situation --MX on the right, a big tumor and 8 lymph nodes involved, i really want to have internal mammary treated. But the doctor seemed prefer to leaving the nodes alone to save the heart. I dont know if my decision is right.

Please kindly advice! Thanks!

one more question, my RO mentioned the treatment will be 5.5 weeks long, so maybe 28 days. From here, looks like poeple are getting 33 treatments. Why the difference? Anyone knows?

TectonicShift · October 2012

Personally I would insist he treat the internal nodes if I were you. My understanding is that risk to the heart is worse if the MX side is the left side. (By that I mean your left.)

My rad onc. was not sure exactly how long my rads would be. She said we would do 28 days and see how the skin was holding up and then maybe do some extra sessions. Which we ended up doing.

Question about heart damage

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