You will get a lot of information during your consultation. It can be helpful and reassuring to have someone accompany you to this appointment.
< Radiation therapy
How to prepare for your treatment
Below are the different steps before you start your radiation therapy:
- Consultation with your radiation oncologist
- Meeting with your clinical technologist
- Meeting with your pivot nurse (except for patients followed at another institution)
Your doctor may have ordered other tests (blood tests; CT scan, PET scan, MRI, etc.) to better assess the stage of your cancer. Each case is different. The planning for your treatment usually begins once these tests are complete.
Making your immobilizer (if required)
Your treatment has to be very precise, which means that the medical team may have to make an immobilization device to keep you in position during each treatment.
The immobilizer you need will depend on the area being treated. If you find the position painful while the device is being made, please advise your technologists. They will do their best to improve your comfort.
If you haven't been told that you need an immobilizer, you won't need one.
PLANNING SCAN
This scan is not for diagnostic purposes. Instead, the images allow your doctor to map out the organs to be treated in order to spare healthy tissue as much as possible.
Your treatment will then be personalized by dosimetrists, technologists, and physicists who specialize in developing treatment plans.
TATTOOS
After the planning scan, a technologist will make a few small (1-2 mm) permanent marks on your skin with a small needle. These tattoos will allow the technologists in the treatment room to position you correctly every day. You can bathe normally, as the tattoos won't disappear.
DOSIMETRY
This is a dosimetry plan created from a planning scan. You can see the areas to be treated and those that will be protected, along with the dose distribution and entry points for the radiation beams.