When Melanie Mapleson noticed a lump above her collarbone, she got it checked immediately and waited for her results.
As a doctor herself, the 38-year-old knew there could be something seriously wrong.
"Those days prior to the diagnosis when I'd felt the symptoms but hadn't got any answers, they were some of the worst days of my life," she tells SBS News.
My mind was jumping to the worst possible case scenario and the worst conclusions, even though they were all hypothetical at that stage.
Mapleson was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma — a form of cancer that attacks the lymphatic system — in 2023 and describes feeling a "wave of numbness" at the news.
In the days following, she was offered radiotherapy as a treatment option.
Mapleson worried if she opted for radiotherapy, she could become radioactive, leaving her with damaged skin and hair loss.
Above all, she was concerned she wouldn't be able to care for her son, who was two years old at the time.
But despite her reservations, the treatment proved to be life-saving.
"When you're diagnosed with something like this, it's hard to resist the temptation to go and look at every possible source of information, even those that are most unreliable," Mapleson says.
"I had a young child, so I was afraid of putting him at risk and all of that was really completely non-factual, but that's what the mind settled on when you're in a place of uncertainty and fear."
Why radiotherapy is underutilised
Despite radiotherapy being a safe and reliable treatment for many types of cancer, one in five eligible Australian cancer patients never receive it, according to research cited by Australian oncologists.
Radiation therapy machines have advanced significantly over the past few decades, according to oncologists. Source: Supplied / St George Cancer Care Centre
"We know that sometimes lives can be lost because people don't get radiotherapy when they should," she says.
"So we feel very much that every health professional, but particularly every doctor, needs to know at least the basics about what radiotherapy can do, how safe it is, how sophisticated it is, and what the process of delivery is so they can help advise and refer their patients."
Turner says the technology has improved "immensely" over the last few decades and now contributes to at least 40 per cent of cancer eradication.
"There used to be some places in the body that we couldn't easily use radiotherapy because of the sensitive structures or organs next to that area," she says.
With our new technologies, [we are] able to get around those problems.
"And mainly this has come about through being able to accurately visualise the organ or part of the body that's being treated at the time it's being treated."
Professor Jarad Martin, a clinical and research radiation oncologist, agrees that radiation therapy is an effective cancer treatment, but says it's often best used in combination with chemotherapy and surgery.
"A lot of what we've learned from clinical trials has often been that for some quite complex cancers, just one treatment alone is unlikely to get the best outcome," he says.
"Quite often you do need to get some combination of both or even all three of those modalities in a very particular kind of sequence and even overlapping sometimes to get the best chance of controlling the disease."
Quality of life
Another key factor in determining a course of treatment is its potential impact on someone's quality of life.
It's a consideration that was at the front of his mind for 63-year-old Kuldeep Duhan, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago.
Despite the side effects — with the most common being skin irritation and fatigue — Duhan tells SBS News his experience of radiotherapy treatment was relatively stress-free.
When considering his cancer treatment options, Kuldeep Duhan says he wanted to prioritise his ability to keep working. Source: Supplied
"When you are getting the radiotherapy done, you don't feel anything and everything was really seamless from my point of view. I continued to work because I'd get it done in the morning, and then come to work and I'd do my normal day's work."
Mapleson also described radiotherapy as pain-free.
"I wasn't radioactive and my skin didn't break down, and I didn't lose hair or anything based on the radiotherapy," she says.
"So I had a bit of a mild cough for a period of time and some sensation of I guess discomfort while swallowing. But that was very short-lived. And because I was expecting it, I knew that it was part of the immediate side effects from the treatment."
Mapleson and Duhan have since successfully finished their radiation therapies, but Turner says other patients could still be sceptical or fearful of the treatment.
Dispelling misconceptions
One of the most common fears stems from radiation exposure, which can lead patients to believe they are at high risk of becoming "radioactive".
But Turner says this is a misconception.
"Often people think that you are going to be radioactive when you have treatment and that could be damaging to people's families or children or pregnant people," she says.
Although there are some much less common forms of radiation therapy that use radioactivity, the vast majority of people having radiotherapy are never radioactive.
Turner has also come across patients who don't understand the difference between radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which is another common treatment for cancer.
"Radiation is very focused and only treats the area that we need to treat with a very narrow safety margin," she says.
"So a lot of those generalised side effects like nausea and vomiting and other things that you can get from chemotherapy are much less common with radiotherapy, depending on that part of the body that we are treating."
'Mind-blowing' applications
Martin says radiotherapy can even have benefits beyond treating cancer.
"This is kind of a bit mind-blowing, but it actually turns out that very low dose radiotherapy may be of some benefit for people with some chronic inflammatory conditions like plantar fasciitis, for instance, which is a condition that can affect people's ability to walk," he says.
"So in radiation oncology, we're now working hard to get good high quality data about exactly how much we can maybe help people with these other conditions as well."
Turner also emphasised the importance of well-funded radiotherapy research.
"It's important that decision makers, policy makers, and governments understand the importance of radiation therapy and to appropriately invest in radiotherapy services that are needed to make sure that all patients get good access to radiotherapy," she says.
Raising awareness
Turner is also the co-chair of the World Radiotherapy Awareness Day committee, a global campaign launched to highlight the importance of radiotherapy in treating cancer and to advocate for its universal access, which is being launched on 7 September.
Organisers of the event say research shows approximately 200 million people live in countries with no radiotherapy facilities.
"World Radiotherapy Awareness Day is a way to bring the whole radiation oncology community together, and also people that have been touched by cancer and had radiation therapy, patients and survivors, and their families, and bring everyone together to raise their voice around the same issues that are worldwide," Turner says.
"And these are about lack of awareness, lack of education, fear of radiotherapy, and access to radiotherapy."
Mapleson says her views on radiotherapy have changed significantly since undergoing treatment.
"I did experience the fear, but I understand now that I was sort of misled online to believe certain things that aren't in fact true about the treatment."
Disclaimer: The information in this article is for general information purposes only and should not be relied on as a substitute for professional medical advice. Readers are advised to consult a qualified health professional for guidance specific to their situation.
