Radiotherapy
Your planning appointment takes from 15 minutes to 2 hours.
You usually have a planning CT scan in the radiotherapy department.
The scan shows the cancer and the area around it. You might have other types of scans or x-rays to help your treatment team plan your radiotherapy. The plan they create is just for you.
Find out more about having a CT scan
The radiographer might ask you to change into a hospital gown. You should remove any jewellery and other metal objects, such as hair clips around the area being scanned. Metal interferes with the images produced by the scanner.
You will need to empty your bladder and bowel before you have the CT scan, and for every radiotherapy treatment. You may need to take to help empty your bowel. The radiographers go through this with you.
When you’re ready, the radiographer or assistant takes you into the scanning room. A CT scanning machine is large and shaped like a doughnut.
Tell the radiographer if you feel anxious or claustrophobic about having a scan.
You usually lie down on the machine couch on your back, with a cushion support underneath your head and knees. You may also have something to hold your feet in place. Once you’re in the right position, the radiographer leaves the room to protect them from the radiation. They can see you on a TV screen or through a window from the control room. You can talk to each other through an intercom.
The couch slowly slides backwards and forwards through the hole of the scanner. The machine takes pictures as you move through it.
The scan is painless but can be uncomfortable because you have to stay still. Tell your radiographers if you’re getting stiff and need to move.
You’ll hear a whirring noise from the scanner.
The radiographer might ask you to hold your breath at times.
At the end of the scan, your radiographer will mark your skin with very small dots. These permanent marks help the radiographers line you up in the same way every day for treatment. The tattoos make sure they treat exactly the same area for all of your treatments.
They make the small dots using a small needle and some dye. These marks are permanent. Your radiographer might also draw marks around the tattoo dots with a permanent ink pen. This is so they are clear to see when they are lining you up for treatment as the lights are usually low.
Once finished the radiographer lowers the couch so you can get up.
You might have to wait a few days or up to 3 weeks before you start treatment.
During this time the physicists and your radiotherapy doctor (clinical oncologist) decide the final details of your radiotherapy plan. They make sure that the area of the cancer will receive a high dose and nearby areas receive a low dose. This reduces the side effects you might get during and after treatment.
Last reviewed: 20 Aug 2025
Next review due: 20 Aug 2028
You might have radiotherapy as your main treatment instead of surgery. You have it on its own or combined with chemotherapy.
Radiotherapy side effects include tiredness, sore skin, bladder inflammation and diarrhoea.
Muscle invasive bladder cancer means the cancer has spread into or through the muscle layer of the bladder. The main treatments include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Coping with bladder cancer can be difficult. There are things you can do to help, and people who can support you practically and emotionally.
Bladder cancer is cancer that starts in the lining of the bladder. The bladder is part of the urinary system, which filters waste products out of your blood and makes urine. Find out about the symptoms, how you are diagnosed, treatment, living with bladder cancer and follow up.
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