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Pelvic Radiation Disease and the Gastrointestinal Tract

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Intestinal Failure

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Abstract

Radiation to treat a tumour in the pelvis may lead to side effects in the normal tissues surrounding it. Pelvic Radiation Disease is defined as: “transient or longer term problems, ranging from mild to very severe, arising in non-cancerous tissues resulting from radiotherapy treatment to a tumour located in the pelvis”. Symptoms tend to start during the second week of treatment and peak by the fourth to fifth week. Chronic radiation-induced side effects affecting daily activities are substantially more common than generally recognised. Successful treatment of gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms after radiotherapy is frequent if checklists (algorithms) are followed and often fails when empirical treatments are tried. In this chapter we will discuss further the pathophysiology, epidemiology and management of pelvic radiation disease.

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  1. Department of Gastroenterology, Lincoln County Hospital, Lincoln, UK

    Darren Fernandes & Jervoise Andreyev

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    Jeremy M.D. Nightingale

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Fernandes, D., Andreyev, J. (2023). Pelvic Radiation Disease and the Gastrointestinal Tract. In: Nightingale, J.M. (eds) Intestinal Failure. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22265-8_18

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