Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Radiation therapy for breast cancer
By Mayo Clinic staffRadiation therapy uses high-powered X-rays to kill cancer cells, decreasing the risk of cancer recurrence. Radiation therapy is almost always recommended after lumpectomy, and it's sometimes recommended for high-risk women following mastectomy.
Your doctor may recommend radiation therapy if you have:
- A wide local excision (lumpectomy)
- A tumor larger than 5 centimeters (about 2 inches)
- Tumor growth into the chest muscles
- Multiple lymph nodes that test positive for cancer
- Inflammatory breast cancer
One of two different approaches may be used:
- External radiation. External beam radiation, the standard type of radiation therapy, delivers radiation to your breast from a machine outside your body.
- Internal radiation. Internal radiation, or brachytherapy, uses tiny, implantable radioactive devices ("seeds") placed in your breast near the tumor site to deliver radiation to affected breast tissue.
Radiation therapy usually begins about three to six weeks after surgery. If you choose chemotherapy and radiation as adjuvant therapy, you usually receive chemotherapy first, followed by the radiation. Radiation therapy can be done at the same time as adjuvant hormone therapy. The risk of breast cancer recurrence is no different if you choose lumpectomy with radiation or mastectomy without radiation.
Side effects of radiation therapy
Radiation therapy is a cumulative process, and its side effects tend to become more of an issue as time passes.
Common side effects include:
- Mild to moderate fatigue
- Skin irritation — such as itchiness, redness, peeling or blistering — similar to what you might experience with a sunburn
- Breast swelling
- Changes in skin sensation
Rarely, radiation therapy may cause:
- Arm swelling (lymphedema)
- Rib tenderness
- Inflamed lung tissue
- Heart damage
- Secondary cancers
Some breast changes may be permanent after radiation. These include changes in skin color, feelings of heaviness in your breast, changes in the texture of your breast and even size changes.
Radiation therapy for breast cancer: Pros and cons Chemotherapy: Pros and cons
