Hi,
My wife Rosie was recently given the all-clear after having been diagnosed with breast cancer late last year. It was tubular, grade 1, and a slow-growing cancer that had been caught early and had not spread to any lymph nodes. The doctor said her prognosis is excellent. Great!
However, she still requires 4 weeks of localised radiotherapy which starts in a month. We are trying for kids and the doctors knew this but never mentioned any potential dangers of being pregnant and having radiotherapy. In fact at one point I’m pretty sure I remember the consultant saying that it would be fine because the radiotherapy treatment will only be around the breast. But the leaflet on radiotherapy that we’ve been given today says that you must not be pregnant during treatment or the feotus could be damaged! My wife is 41 and our time is running out. We have been allowed to delay tamoxifen while we try.
Is localised radiotherapy to the breat area safe for early pregancy or not. Obviously I’m asking just in case!
Radiation protection forms part of my job back in the real world (in a medical setting, but not radiotherapy), there is no way I would consider radiotherapy in pregnancy, even though the dose would be targeted to the breast and the abdomen could be shielded the scatter radiation would still be fairly high for a fetus.
This is something I’ve had to think about as when I was diagnosed I was pregnant, in the end we decided it was just too much to deal with and we ended up having an abortion, but when discussing treatment whilst pregnant my oncologist said that whilst they could give chemo, radiotherapy would have to be delayed till after I delivered which would probably have meant delivering early.
Thank you kath and Jo80,
We are hoping to hear from the consultant oncologist tomorrow who I’m sure will tell us what you have, Jo. It is annoying to delay as time is againnst us but we’ll probably just have to wait for a couple of months.
Many thanks,
Bob
Just to let you know that if either yourself or Rosie need someone to talk to away from family and friends, then our helpline team are just a free phone call away, they’re here to support you through this. Calls are free, 0808 800 6000 lines open Mon-Fri 9-5 and Sat 10-2
Thanks Jo,
I have since spoken to our consultant oncologist and she has confirmed that they won’t do radiotherapy if they know the patient is pregnant. They even give the patient a pregnancy test beforehand if the patient thinks there is even a small chance of being pregnant. If Rosie were to be then it’s would be a stark choice of termination or delay the radiotherapy for a year.
Bob