About radiotherapy for mouth cancer

Radiotherapy uses high energy radiation to kill cancer cells. You can't feel it at all while you are having treatment. It is like having an X-ray. But a course of radiotherapy that lasts a few weeks has some side effects. In particular, your mouth can get very sore and dry.

For mouth and oropharyngeal cancers, you may have

• Radiotherapy on its own
• Radiotherapy after surgery
• Radiotherapy with chemotherapy
• Radiotherapy to control symptoms

There are different ways of giving radiotherapy for head and neck cancers. The main two are

• External beam radiotherapy
• Internal radiotherapy

You can use the links above to take you to other pages in this section with detailed information.

External beam radiotherapy

External radiotherapy is given from a machine similar to an X-ray machine. The treatment is broken down into a large number of small treatments because this helps to reduce the side effects. You usually have treatment daily from Monday to Friday, from 4 to 7 weeks. So you have up to 35 separate sessions called fractions. If you add up all the radiation doses you have in the fractions they make up the complete dose of radiation your specialist has prescribed. If you have fewer treatments, you have larger doses per treatment.

Internal radiotherapy

If you have a small tumour you are more likely to have internal radiotherapy, also called brachytherapy. A source of radiation is placed inside the body close beside or inside the cancer.

Radiotherapy on its own

Radiotherapy may be the first choice of treatment for some types of mouth and oropharyngeal cancer. It can cure many people with early stage cancers. For some people it may be less likely than surgery to cause voice loss or changes in the way you look after the treatment. Whether this type of treatment is suitable for you will depend on

• Which type of mouth or oropharyngeal cancer you have
• The size of the cancer
• How far it has grown into the surrounding tissues
• The exact position of the cancer

Radiotherapy after surgery

Radiotherapy after surgery is called adjuvant therapy. It helps to stop your cancer from coming back. Doctors use radiotherapy after surgery for a number of different reasons. You may have it because

• The tumour was difficult to remove
• Your surgeon thinks there may be cancer cells left behind
• The tumour had spread locally into nearby structures
• Cancer cells were found in your lymph nodes

Radiotherapy with chemotherapy

You may have radiotherapy and chemotherapy at the same time for some types of mouth and oropharyngeal cancer. There is information about radiotherapy with chemotherapy treatment in the chemotherapy for mouth and oropharyngeal cancer section.

Radiotherapy to relieve symptoms

Radiotherapy can relieve symptoms in advanced mouth and oropharyngeal cancer. You may hear this called palliative radiotherapy. It is helpful if your cancer is causing difficulty in swallowing. Or if the cancer is pressing on your windpipe and making it difficult for you to breathe. It can also help to shrink a tumour if it is causing pressure on the brain.

The treatment relieves symptoms by shrinking the cancer. The cancer may grow back, but it could take a while to do so. No one can say exactly how long, but the radiotherapy could relieve your symptoms for some time. Radiotherapy can also help to relieve pain. To control symptoms, you are most likely to have a short course of a few treatments over a few days.

If you would like more information about radiotherapy, look at the main radiotherapy section. There are sections about

• What radiotherapy involves
• How your radiotherapy treatment is planned
• Possible side effects of radiotherapy

There are books and booklets about radiotherapy, some of which are free. Look at the reading list for mouth cancers.