Brachytherapy after hysterectomy

Will be having brachytherapy in a few weeks time. I have looked on line - sometimes helpful sometimes not - and have found a video about how the treatment is administered.

Is anyone out there who has had the treatment able to offer any information about the treatment you wished you had known about beforehand please?

All information from a patient is better for me than loads of reading.

Thank you

  • Hello Emma,

    I thought I would bump your message so that it appears at the top of our forum. As you say, there is nothing like hearing from personal experiences, and I hope you will get to talk to others here who have had brachytherapy following a hysterectomy. 

    Best wishes,

    Lucie, Cancer Chat Moderator

  • Hi.  I am two thirds of the way through a course of brachytherapy.  I was diagnosed with high grade endometrial cancer.  Following a total hysterectomy and lymph node dissection, my cancer was staged at 1A.  This was better than I had dared hope for. Brachytherapy was offered as a back up.  Hopefully your planning meeting will explain fully the treatment and side effects.  Mine was very helpful.   At my first treatment I had an mri to check the applicator was in the correct position.  The radiotherapy is painless and in my case treatment has only been approx 9 minutes per session. The first session was longer due to the mri.  .  You may want to ask if you are having high or low dose.  If you have the Macmillan booklet, there is a section in it which explains the process. You could also go to your hospitals website.  Feel free to ask me any questions.  As for side effects, I have been lucky so far in that I haven’t experienced any.

    hope everything goes well with your treatment.