Radiation Therapy for Bladder Cancer

External Beam Radiation Therapy

External beam radiation therapy involves a series of daily outpatient treatments to deliver radiation to the bladder. These treatments take less than half an hour each, five days a week, for five to seven weeks.

• The radiation beam is usually generated by a machine called a linear accelerator or linac. Doctors use this machine to generate high-energy X-rays to treat your cancer.
• Using high-tech treatment planning software, your treatment team controls the size and shape of the beam, as well as how it is directed at your body. This allows doctors to treat the cancer while sparing nearby healthy organs.
• Three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) combines multiple radiation treatment fields to deliver precise doses of radiation to the cancer. This improved technique helps keep radiation away from nearby healthy tissue.
• Intensity modulated radiation therapy, or IMRT, is a specialized form of 3D-CRT that allows the radiation beams to be further shaped to focus on the tumor. IMRT is still being studied for bladder cancer.