Hart Nat Hentoff David Horowitz Arianna Huffington Marianne Jennings Michael Kelly Mort Kondracke Ch.
Radiation therapy affects normal tissue as well as abnormal cells.
Therefore, inflammation and scarring of normal structures often result from such treatment. In your case, I suspect that the doctor administered radiation to one side of your chest. Thus, your heart, lung and esophagus were also included in the radiation field. The normal heart is ordinarily quite resistant to X-rays, which seldom cause cardiac damage. This usually resolves with time or can be treated with cortisone drugs.