Applications of Proton Therapy

Proton therapy treatments can be broken into two broad categories. The first are for disease sites that favor the delivery of a higher dose of radiation, also known as dose escalation. In many instances, proton dose escalation has been shown to achieve a higher probability of a cure than conventional radiotherapy. The types of cancers successfully treated with dose escalation proton therapy as compared with conventional X-ray radiotherapy include, but are not limited to, ocular tumors, skull base and paraspinal tumors, and unresectable sarcomas, which are rare, malignant tumors found almost anywhere in the body. A high dose of a precisely targeted proton beam has seen thousands of patients survive these types of cancers.

The second broad class of treatments are those where the increased precision of proton therapy is used to reduce unwanted side effects by limiting the dose to normal, healthy, surrounding tissue. In these instances, there is no expectation of an increased probability of curing the disease but rather the emphasis is on the reduction of the integral radiation dose to the normal tissue, thus reducing unwanted side effects. Cancers such as pediatric neoplasms and prostate cancer are examples of when this kind of treatment is most appropriate. In the case of pediatric treatments, there is convincing clinical data showing the advantage of sparing developing organs using protons, thus reducing long-term damage to the child.

Prostate cancer diagnoses each year far exceed those of the other diseases I’ve mentioned above, which has led many proton therapy treatment facilities to devote a majority of their treatment slots to prostate cancer patients. Currently, roughly 26 percent of proton therapy treatments worldwide are for prostate cancer. About 2,355,000 men in the United States are living with diagnosed prostate cancer, exceeding all other cancers, among men, by over 1 million. With numbers like these, it is no wonder so many proton therapy centers have placed a special emphasis on treating prostate cancer.

Lastly, proton beams can be given in relatively low doses to surface cancers while giving higher doses to tumors that are deep within the body, allowing doctors to prescribe the appropriate doses of treatment precisely for the each individual case. Proton therapy is a non-invasive treatment that does not require surgery to remove the cancer, which makes it an ideal treatment for inoperable tumors. Tumors in and around the skull, spine, and deep within the body have been successfully treated with proton beam therapy.

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