Proton Therapy: The Present and the Future

The aim of most advances in radiotherapy is to improve disease control, survival, and quality of life, and with technological developments, it is achieved by equitoxic dose escalation or simply by more targeted therapy, reducing treatment-induced side effects. Photon radiotherapy technology, in therapeutic use since the discovery of X-rays, has progressed in leaps and bounds to offer sophisticated treatments, delivering defined doses of radiation with a high level of precision to tumors visualized with modern imaging. As good as the photon techniques are, delivered by a variety of highly sophisticated linear accelerators and aided by all manner of beam shaping and image guidance, they are limited by the physical principles of photon travel and energy deposition, with inevitable doses to tissues outside the target.
Source: Seminars in Radiation Oncology - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Source Type: research