29 Facts About Proton therapy

In medicine, proton therapy, or proton radiotherapy, is a type of particle therapy that uses a beam of protons to irradiate diseased tissue, most often to treat cancer.

Proton therapy is a type of external beam radiotherapy that uses ionizing radiation.

Proton therapy lets physicians deliver a highly conformal beam, i e delivering radiation that conforms to the shape and depth of the tumor and sparing much of the surrounding, normal tissue.

Accelerators used for proton therapy typically produce protons with energies of 70 to 250 MeV.

Linear accelerators, as used for photon radiation Proton therapy, are becoming commercially available as limitations of size and cost are resolved.

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World's first hospital-based proton therapy center was a low energy cyclotron centre for eye tumors at Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology in the UK, opened in 1989, followed in 1990 at the Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Newest form of proton therapy, pencil beam scanning, gives therapy by sweeping a proton beam laterally over the target so that it gives the required dose while closely conforming to shape of the targeted tumor.

Over time many scattering Proton therapy systems have been upgraded to deliver pencil beam scanning.

Proton therapy for eye tumors is a special case since this treatment requires only relatively low energy protons .

Ocular tumors, selecting the type of radioProton therapy depends on tumor location and extent, tumor radioresistance, and the Proton therapy's potential toxic side effects on nearby critical structures.

For example, proton therapy is an option for retinoblastoma and intraocular melanoma.

Proton therapy has been very effective for people with base of skull tumors.

Proton therapy lowers the risk of treatment-related side effects from when healthy tissue gets radiation.

For recurrent head and neck cancer requiring reirradiation, proton therapy is able to maximize a focused dose of radiation to the tumor while minimizing dose to surrounding tissues, hence a minimal acute toxicity profile, even in patients who got multiple prior courses of radiotherapy.

One recent study showed that proton therapy has low toxicity to nearby healthy tissues and similar rates of disease control compared with conventional radiation.

Small studies have found that, compared to conventional photon radiation, proton therapy delivers minimal toxic dose to healthy tissues and specifically decreased dose to the heart and lung.

The following review presents the benefits of proton therapy in treating hepatocellular carcinoma, pancreatic cancer and esophageal cancer.

Research shows that proton therapy gives favorable results related to local tumor control, progression-free survival, and overall survival.

Patients who get local or regional recurrences after their initial radiation Proton therapy, physicians are limited in their treatment options due to their reluctance to give additional photon radiation Proton therapy to tissues that have already been irradiated.

Large study on comparative effectiveness of proton therapy was published by teams of the University of Pennsylvania and Washington University in St Louis in JAMA Oncology, assessing if proton therapy in the setting of concurrent chemoradiotherapy is associated with fewer 90-day unplanned hospitalizations and overall survival compared with concurrent photon therapy and chemoradiotherapy.

Megavoltage X-ray therapy has less "skin scarring potential" than proton therapy: X-ray radiation at the skin, and at very small depths, is lower than for proton therapy.

Benefit of external beam proton radiation is in the dosimetric difference from external beam X-ray radiation and brachytherapy in cases where use of radiation therapy is already indicated, rather than as a direct competition with surgery.

Indeed, the largest study to date showed that IMRT compared with proton therapy was associated with less gastrointestinal morbidity.

Proton therapy is a type of external beam radiotherapy, and shares risks and side effects of other forms of radiation therapy.

Proton therapy has been in use for over 40 years, and is a mature technology.

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An analysis published in 2005 determined that the cost of proton therapy is not unrealistic and should not be the reason for denying patients access to the technology.

The proton therapy unit is being supplied by ProTom International, which will install its Radiance 330 proton therapy system, the same system used at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Apollo Proton therapy Cancer Centre in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, a unit under Apollo Hospitals, is a Cancer specialty hospital.

In 2014, only low-energy proton therapy was available in the UK, at Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust in Merseyside.