Side effects of brain tumour radiotherapy

This page tells you about the side effects of brain tumour radiotherapy. There is information about

A quick guide to what's on this page
Hair loss
Sickness
Tiredness
Worsening of your brain tumour symptoms
Side effects of stereotactic radiotherapy

Side effects of brain tumour radiotherapy

You may have hair loss in the area of the head being treated. You do not lose all your hair as you do with chemotherapy. You may feel sick when having radiotherapy to the brain. This does not happen to everyone. Your doctor can give you anti sickness tablets.

Tiredness

You are likely to feel more and more tired as your course of radiotherapy goes on. The tiredness usually goes on for a few weeks after the treatment has finished. It will gradually improve. A rarer complication is somnolence syndrome. This is extreme tiredness, where you sleep nearly all the time. It can begin a few weeks after treatment has finished. Somnolence syndrome will go away in time.

Worsening of your brain tumour symptoms

With radiotherapy, symptoms can sometimes get worse before they get better. This is because radiotherapy can cause swelling in the treated area. Your doctor will give you steroids to try and prevent this. The symptoms will get better with time.

Stereotactic radiotherapy

Stereotactic radiotherapy targets the tumour more precisely. So it tends to have fewer or milder side effects than regular radiotherapy to the brain.

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Hair loss only happens in the area of the head that is being treated. You do not lose all your hair, as you do with chemotherapy. You will usually only lose patches where the radiation beams entered and left your skull. There is more about hair loss and radiotherapy in our main radiotherapy section.

You may feel sick while you are having radiotherapy to the brain. It does not happen to everyone. But if it troubles you, your doctor can give you anti sickness tablets to take each day before your treatment. There is detailed information about sickness in our brain radiotherapy side effects section.

Tiredness is often a symptom with any radiotherapy treatment. With a course of treatment for a brain tumour, you are likely to feel more and more tired as the course goes on. Sometimes, people sleep practically all day during the final week of their treatment. There is more about tiredness and radiotherapy in our main radiotherapy section.

Usually the tiredness goes on for a few weeks after the treatment has finished. It will gradually improve. A rarer complication is somnolence syndrome. This is very extreme tiredness, where after treatment you sleep nearly all the time. Somnolence syndrome can begin a few weeks after treatment has finished. Just when you think you are getting over your treatment, this can be a blow. But it will also pass in time. There is information about long term side effects of brain radiotherapy in this section of CancerHelp UK.

As with surgery for brain tumours, radiotherapy can sometimes make symptoms worse before they get better. This is because the treatment can cause swelling in the treatment area. The swelling increases the pressure in the head and makes the symptoms get worse. Your doctor will give you steroids to try to prevent this. But it too will get better in time.

Stereotactic radiotherapy targets the brain tumour more precisely. So less healthy brain tissue is exposed to radiation. This means that the treatment tends to have fewer, or milder, side effects than regular radiotherapy to the brain.