What Is Brachytherapy for Mesothelioma?
Brachytherapy works differently from standard mesothelioma radiation, which comes from a machine outside the body. Instead, doctors place the radiation source directly next to the tumor using a small tube or applicator. This allows them to deliver a stronger, more targeted dose of radiation to the cancer while protecting nearby healthy tissue as much as possible.
Brachytherapy for mesothelioma isn’t used very often. It’s mainly offered in clinical trials testing new treatments or as a way to manage pain. If studies show it could help mesothelioma patients, it may become more widely recommended.
Key Facts on Brachytherapy for Mesothelioma
- It’s also called internal radiation therapy.
- Brachytherapy may be temporary or permanent.
- It generally has fewer side effects as it causes less damage to healthy tissues.
Most people can return to normal activities soon after treatment.
Your mesothelioma doctor can determine if brachytherapy or another type of radiation treatment could potentially help you live longer with this cancer.
Use our Free Doctor Match to find specialists who can see how mesothelioma radiation options like brachytherapy could fit into your care plan.
What to Expect During Brachytherapy Radiation
If your radiation oncologist (cancer doctor) recommends brachytherapy for mesothelioma, they’ll walk you through each step in the process. This includes using scans to find your cancer tumors, administering the radiation, and monitoring your response to the treatment.
1. Get Imaging Scans
Doctors start with X-rays, CT scans, or MRI scans to pinpoint the exact location of your mesothelioma tumors. For malignant pleural mesothelioma, for example, they’ll take imaging scans of your chest wall. These scans guide where the radioactive substance used in brachytherapy should go and how much should be used.
Doctors may use either high-dose rate (HDR) or low-dose-rate (LDR) brachytherapy depending on the treatment goals. HDR brachytherapy means that the radioactive material stays in your body for a limited amount of time, but delivers more radiation. LDR brachytherapy remains permanently inside, but less is administered to prevent complications.
2. Receive Brachytherapy
The doctor places the radioactive material next to or inside the mesothelioma tumor using a removable applicator or thin catheter.
It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours to receive brachytherapy treatments, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Many visits are outpatient, so you go home the same day.
“The overall treatment time can be shorter with brachytherapy because a larger dose of radiation can be safely delivered at one time.”
– Mayo Clinic
If you’re receiving HDR brachytherapy, you might need to get multiple sessions over the course of several weeks.
3. Recover and Get Monitored After the Brachytherapy Procedure
After brachytherapy, you’ll have a designated recovery period. This is because the cancer treatment can cause side effects like fatigue and nausea. You could start feeling better in a week or less, but you’ll need to get rest in the meantime.
If you’re treated with LDR brachytherapy, doctors may recommend not coming in contact with children or pregnant women, as there’ll be a low risk of exposing them to radiation. There isn’t a risk of this if you’ve received HDR brachytherapy, though.
Your doctors will also recommend follow-up imaging scans to make sure that brachytherapy is helping to shrink your tumors. If the cancer starts to grow again, they can recommend different options to potentially help you live longer.
External Beam Radiation vs. Brachytherapy for Mesothelioma
Brachytherapy is very different from another form of radiotherapy known as external beam radiation therapy (EBRT). Here, doctors use a machine to provide precise doses of radiation mapped to a patient’s tumor. It is by far the most common type of mesothelioma radiation. Nearly all mesothelioma patients who need radiation receive EBRT.
EBRT can treat a larger area of the body with radiation when compared to brachytherapy, which only targets a small, specific spot. However, EBRT may also expose more healthy, nearby tissue to radiation, leading to a higher risk of side effects.
Brachytherapy for mesothelioma is not considered as effective as EBRT. With that said, brachytherapy is still used for other cancers. Doctors continue to study whether it could possibly be incorporated into more mesothelioma treatment plans moving forward.
Call (866) 608-8933 for help exploring mesothelioma radiation options and other treatments that could improve your life expectancy.
When Is Brachytherapy for Mesothelioma Used?
Right now, brachytherapy is only used occasionally to treat mesothelioma. Brachytherapy could sometimes be recommended to supplement other therapies in a multimodal treatment plan, according to Case Reports in Oncology.
Treatments that could be combined with brachytherapy include:
- Surgery: Targets leftover cancer cells after tumor removal.
- Chemotherapy: Cancer-killing drugs travel through the whole body while radiation focuses on the tumor.
- Immunotherapy: Boosts the immune system to fight cancer while brachytherapy attacks it locally.
“Brachytherapy combined with other treatments, such as external beam radiation or chemotherapy, can enhance the overall effectiveness of cancer therapy.”
– Dr. Stefanie Corradini, radiation oncologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-University
Doctors can also sometimes use a specific type of this treatment called endobronchial brachytherapy (EBB) as a form of palliative care for mesothelioma. EBB won’t help patients live longer, but it can ease symptoms and improve their quality of life.
Benefits of Brachytherapy for Mesothelioma
While brachytherapy for mesothelioma is not used as often as other types of radiation, it does have some advantages. For example, it allows doctors to deliver precise doses of radiation straight to the tumor, while causing less harm to nearby healthy tissue.
Additionally, brachytherapy poses a lower risk of serious side effects compared to EBRT, according to RWJ Barnabas Health. However, EBRT is considered more effective for treating mesothelioma and is more commonly used as a result.
Finally, brachytherapy could also help improve mesothelioma prognosis. Patients with chest wall cancers like mesothelioma or lung cancer who experienced recurrence were treated with brachytherapy in a 2025 Frontiers in Oncology study. The patients had an overall life expectancy of 26 months and a 1-year survival rate of 85%.
However, more studies on how brachytherapy can help mesothelioma patients specifically are needed before it can be recommended for a wider range of patients.
Get our Free Mesothelioma Guide to learn how radiation treatments may work for you or a loved one after a mesothelioma diagnosis.
Mesothelioma Brachytherapy Side Effects
Like any radiation treatment, brachytherapy for mesothelioma has risks. Treatment side effects depend on where the tumor is, the radiation dose, your overall health, and other factors.
Side effects of brachytherapy for mesothelioma include:
- Difficulty breathing
- Fatigue
- Incontinence
- Nausea and vomiting
- Skin irritation near the treatment site
Most side effects of brachytherapy don’t last very long and can be managed with help from your health care team, using pain-relieving medicines and supportive care.
If the side effects become too great to bear or you develop more serious complications, your doctors may recommend stopping brachytherapy treatment and trying another option.
Get Help Accessing Mesothelioma Radiation
After a mesothelioma diagnosis, it’s important to consider many different treatments that could help you, including brachytherapy and other types of radiation.
You can ask a specialized oncologist whether brachytherapy may be helpful in your case.
At Mesothelioma Hope, we’re ready to walk you through your treatment options so you can make informed decisions about your health.
Work with us to:
- Connect with local cancer specialists
- Find the best mesothelioma treatments
- Get help affording medical care and travel costs
- Receive the support you and your family deserve
Use our Free Doctor Match or call (866) 608-8933 now to see how we can assist your family.
Brachytherapy for Mesothelioma FAQs
How helpful is brachytherapy for mesothelioma?
Right now, brachytherapy is not the preferred type of radiation for mesothelioma. There is limited data to support that it can help many patients live a long time. Instead, doctors typically tend to recommend external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) if a mesothelioma patient needs radiotherapy.
That said, doctors continue to study brachytherapy in clinical trials to determine whether it can help more patients live longer.
What types of cancer respond well to brachytherapy?
The National Cancer Institute reports that brachytherapy works well for many cancers, like lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer and skin cancer.
It has also been shown to be somewhat helpful for mesothelioma, but in the majority of cases, EBRT is a better fit if patients need radiation.
Call (866) 608-8933 now to learn about which mesothelioma radiation options could work best in your case.
What is life expectancy after brachytherapy?
The life expectancy of cancer patients treated with brachytherapy was 26 months, according to Frontiers in Oncology. All the patients in this study experienced recurrence, where tumors had come back after treatment, and had cancers affecting the chest wall, including mesothelioma and lung cancer.
When is brachytherapy not recommended?
Mesothelioma brachytherapy is not recommended for most patients. There haven’t been enough studies showing that brachytherapy can significantly help many patients with mesothelioma.
However, brachytherapy for mesothelioma is sometimes available in clinical trials, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).
Experienced mesothelioma doctors can determine whether brachytherapy will benefit you. Use our Free Doctor Match to find local radiation specialists who can help.
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