Conversation: The conversation between human and AI assistant.
[|Human|] My left breast has become very firm and enlarged.  My nipple is nearly flat with the rest of my areola on my left breast.  The breast has a flushed pinkness on the rest of my breast.  Ive never had this before and dont know what to do. I lung cancer and just recently finished my first round of chemo and radiation.  Could this be related?  Do I need to see my family doctor?  The type of cancer I have is non-small cell lung cancer Stage 3B. Thanks for your help.Marianna Nichols
[|AI|]  Thanks for your question on Chat Doctor. I think you are having tissue necrosis as a complication of radiotherapy. Radiation used in cancer treatment can affect normal surrounding structures too. In normal cells, radiation causes cell death and cell injury. So healing takes place in injured cells as fibrosis. This fibrous tissue is not smooth and soft as normal cells. So post radiation hardening is due to fibrosis and scarring of damaged normal tissue. So hardening of your breast is mostly due to radiotherapy side effect.