Radiotherapy for skin cancer

Radiotherapy uses x-rays to destroy the cancer cells, while doing as little harm as possible to normal cells.

It is sometimes used instead of surgery to treat basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the skin. You usually have external beam radiotherapy for skin cancer. Occasionally, a type of internal radiotherapy called brachytherapy might be used.

Radiotherapy is particularly useful if surgery might be too difficult or affect your appearance. For example, it may be used for skin cancer that:

• affect parts of the face, such as the nose
• affect large areas
• are deep in the skin.

Radiotherapy is not recommended for young people with skin cancer. This is because it can cause skin changes that may become more noticeable over time.

Radiotherapy is occasionally used when a non-melanoma skin cancer has spread to other places. This can include lymph nodes or an organ such as, the lungs. Sometimes it may be given after surgery if there is a risk that not all the cancer cells have been removed.

You have radiotherapy in the hospital outpatient department. Depending on the type and size of skin cancer, you may only have 1 treatment session. But usually several sessions are needed. You may have radiotherapy each day, 5 days of the week, for 1 or more weeks. Your doctor will discuss your treatment plan with you.

If you are having brachytherapy your doctor will explain more about it.

Everyone has their own way of dealing with a diagnosis and the different emotions they may experience. Macmillan is here to support you. If you would like to talk, you can:

• Call the Macmillan Support Line on 0808 808 0000.
• Chat to our specialists online
• Visit our skin cancer forum Online Community to talk to people who have been affected by skin cancer, share your experience, and ask an expert your questions.

We want everyone affected by cancer to feel our information is written for them.

We want our information to be as clear as possible. To do this, we try to:

• use plain English
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