Leg pain after radiation and chemotherapy for breast cancer can be a side effect of radiation and chemotherapy, or it can be caused by bone metastases from the cancer.
Leg pain after radiotherapy for breast cancer can be a side effect of radiotherapy or it can be caused by bone metastases from the cancer, and you must go to the hospital for relevant tests to clarify the cause.
Chemotherapy drugs cannot accurately identify whether cancer cells are normal or not, so they kill a lot of normal cells while killing cancer cells, causing a series of side effects, including bone destruction. Once the side effect of post-chemotherapy bone destruction has occurred, treatment can be switched to chemotherapy drugs that are less damaging to the bone, and drugs that delay bone destruction can also be used. Bone metastases need to be determined by a whole body bone scan. Once bone metastasis is detected, it means that the breast cancer has progressed to stage IV and palliative treatment is needed to improve the patient’s quality of life, relieve pain and prolong the patient’s survival time. The treatment for breast cancer bone metastasis is systemic treatment, and the main treatment methods are chemotherapy, molecular targeted therapy, endocrine therapy, and on top of that, combined with bisphosphonates are the basic treatment for breast cancer bone metastasis. In addition, local treatment, including surgical treatment and radiotherapy, also has some effect.