A scream, why weren't we told?

I want to scream "Why didn't they tell us?" Just 2 weeks after completion of radiotherapy I found this article from a consultant working at a London hospital. He describes simple tricks to save the heart from potential damage from radiotherapy, but they didn't tell us. I found it using Google, but too late.....

I am annoyed that we were not warned.... we were already aware of difficulties in accurate aiming of the radiation as Jan breathed, and had joked should Jan stop breathing during the therapy. So we even asked about breathing, but NO help was offered along these lines. Is it that the NHS just cannot admit that radiotherapy has any associated danger?

He quotes the radiation levels that "leak" to the heart and arteries during radiotherapy for breast cancer. "Even with modern techniques a portion of the myocardium is still irradiated and receives a minimum of 50% of the dose prescribed to the primary target volume. At least part of the myocardium received at least 85–95% of the total radiation dose.

One study showed a significant reduction in cardiac irradiation achieved by simple respiratory manoeuvres during radiotherapy. In this study the volume of myocardium irradiated was measured during normal quiet inspiration and following deep inspiration. Patients who held their breath following deep inspiration removed a significant proportion of myocardium from the treated volume and in 47% the entire myocardium was excluded."

A Danish paper says: "Breath-hold was well accepted by the patients. The median heart volume receiving >50% of the prescription dose was reduced from 8% to 1% by patients using deep breathing and breath hold techniques. The median left anterior descending coronary artery volume that was irradiated by the same dose reduced from 54 to 5%.

And in New York hospitals they can automate irradiation pulses to the breathing!

So the risks of radiotherapy are well known, NHS dosctors in London know how to reduce this risk, but such information is NOT passed on to patients. What about the hippocratic oath?

We used curcumin and diet to enable the body to best repair what we thought was inevitable radiotherapy damage. It seems this risk could have been avoided by this simple technique which seems to simply get the heart out of the irradiated field. That sucks......