Can radiation therapy cause nausea?

Yes: Since radiation affects both normal and cancerous cells, if your GI tract or brain are in the path of the radiation beam, there is a good chance that nausea will develop. We have excellent drugs to prevent chemotherapy or radiation therapy induced nausea, however.

Yes: Radiation is more likely to cause nausea when its aimed directly at the stomach or the fourth ventricle of the brain. Therefore not all or even many patients who are taking radiation get nauseated because these areas are not in the radiation fields. If they do we premedicate and can avert or greatly reduce this symptom.

Great question!: Almost everyone thinks that radiotherapy causes awful nausea and vomiting. It almost neve does. In the olden days, whole body XRT was used, very rarely today. Big fields; total body, abdominal, thoracic, and whole brain can cause vomiting. We manage by lowering dose per exposure, and meds the quell nausea. It frankly is quite uncommon.

Yes : The degree to which radiation therapy causes nausea depends on several factors: area treated, dose of radiation, whether it is given along with chemotherapy or not. As general rule, most patients tolerate treatment without significant nausea. And fortunately, there are good anti-nausea medications.