Read article About radiotherapy for gallbladder cancer
This page is about radiotherapy for gallbladder cancer.
Radiotherapy for advanced gallbladder cancer
Radiotherapy uses high energy rays to kill cancer cells. You may have radiotherapy if it isn’t possible to completely remove your gallbladder cancer with surgery, because it has spread too far. The treatment will not cure the cancer, but it may help to shrink it or slow it down. Doctors are not completely sure how much benefit there is from this treatment. Results from more clinical trials are needed. You are likely to have radiotherapy in combination with chemotherapy.
Radiotherapy after surgery
Radiotherapy after surgery is called adjuvant therapy. Small studies have suggested this may help to stop your cancer coming back. You might have this treatment because your surgeon thinks there may be cancer cells left behind after your operation. Or cancer cells were found in the lymph nodes your surgeon took out when you had your surgery. You are likely to have this treatment only as part of a clinical trial.
Radiotherapy to relieve symptoms
You may have radiotherapy to relieve the symptoms of advanced gallbladder cancer. This is called palliative radiotherapy.
You can view and print the quick guides for all the pages in the treating gallbladder cancer section.
Radiotherapy uses high energy rays to kill cancer cells. These are a bit like X-rays. But they can kill cancer cells, whilst doing far less damage to normal body tissues. You cannot feel radiotherapy when you have it. But a course of a few weeks will usually have some side effects.
You may have radiotherapy if it isn’t possible to completely remove your cancer with surgery, because it has spread too far. The treatment will not cure the cancer, but it may help to shrink it or slow it down. Doctors are not completely sure how much this treatment helps. We need results from more clinical trials before we know how useful it is. You are likely to have radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy.
Radiotherapy after surgery is called adjuvant therapy. Doctors have been researching to see if it can help to stop your cancer from coming back. Small studies have suggested it helps but we need larger studies to know this for sure.
So you might have this treatment because
- Your surgeon thinks there may be cancer cells left behind after your operation
- Cancer cells were found in the lymph nodes your surgeon took out when you had your surgery
You usually have this type of treatment over 4 or 5 weeks, from Monday to Friday. So you will have between 20 and 25 separate treatments. These treatments are called fractions. You have radiotherapy in a large number of small fractions, because this helps to reduce side effects.
At the end of your course of treatment you may have a boost of additional radiotherapy. You have this in the same way as your first lot of treatment. You are most likely to have adjuvant therapy as part of a clinical trial.
You may have radiotherapy to relieve the symptoms of advanced gallbladder cancer. You may hear this called palliative radiotherapy.
Your cancer may be blocking your bile duct, causing jaundice or pressing on nerves, causing pain. The treatment can shrink the cancer for a time and relieve symptoms. You usually have this type of treatment daily, as a short course over a few days.
Look at our main radiotherapy section. It tells you more about this type of treatment including
There are books and booklets about radiotherapy, some of which are free. Look at the gallbladder cancer reading list or contact one of the gallbladder cancer organisations.
You can also contact our cancer information nurses. They would be happy to help.
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