Radiation is one of several techniques (including surgery or cryosurgery) that can be used in a well-rounded treatment plan to fight cancer. It can be especially effective when the cancer covers a large amount of your body, but there can be complications.
Immediate Side Effects
Immediately following radiation, the skin may feel warm or red and irritated as though you've spent time in the sun. The skin can peel and even ooze fluid as it heals. You doctor should inform you of possible side effects.
Hair Loss
A few weeks to a month after radiation, you might notice hair loss--either temporary or permanent. Also known as alopecia, the hair loss can be severe depending on the duration of the treatment and its affect on the hair follicles.
Darkened Skin
For some, radiation treatment can permanently darken the skin. This change in skin pigmentation can appear gradually and is likely to start as a patchy spot that's darker than the skin around it. The texture of the skin, once healed, will usually appear the same. Only the coloring is changed.
Ulcers
Though very rare, some people who undergo radiation end up with ulcerations on the skin. These ulcers appear as open sores that ooze pus and eventually scab over and heal. However, in even rarer cases, these ulcers don't heal and remain open, placing the patient at constant risk for infection.
Skin Cancer
In very rare cases, skin cancer can develop on the area treated with radiation. Even though one cancer is eliminated, the radiation can cause a new cancer to develop.
Tags: cancer develop, very rare