Treatment interruption?

[JHP]

Does anyone know if radiation should be given five days in a row vs started in the middle of the week with weekends off then resuming the second week? I've looked around and it says that the M-F schedule with weekends off protects cells, but I haven't found any five treatments done over two weeks information. They're giving this for dad's bone mets on a palliative basis. They gave us an appointment for tomorrow, so they seem to be okay with it but I'm just wondering if it's better to wait until Monday so he can have continuous treatments. Is there any advantage that the M-F gives vs the other option?

[Tom Galli]

JHP,

Fractional general radiation, given with non precision methods, is usually a M-F treatment. But I note your dad's fractional radiation is as palliative therapy for bone mets. I suspect the sequence change is related to the palliative therapy. I'm not sure if a 5 concurrent day treatment plan for palliative therapy is required. It is a good question for your father's radiation oncologist.

Stay the course.

Tom

[JHP]

@Tom Galli I think the sequence change is due to scheduling more than anything, not for medical reasons. They approved the radiation plan today and they can take him tomorrow, but they don't offer radiation on weekends and Monday is a holiday. So it will be 2 on, 3 off, 3 on. My dad says they must be okay with it if they scheduled it like this, but if there's an advantage to continuous M-F, or at least starting next week so it'll be 4 on, 2 off, 1 on, then that's definitely something to consider. He wants to go tomorrow and I don't think I'll be able to reach anyway now. I wonder if I should leave things be, but I don't know enough about this topic. I did read that 5 or more interruptions was associated with significantly poorer outcomes, but that should be for people doing longer treatments. His will be only be 5 in total, and as you said, maybe palliative doesn't need to be continuous.