Proton Therapy Advanced Cancer Treatment

In the field of cancer research, and the treatment of cancer, radiation therapy has been one of the mainstays of advanced cancer treatment options for patient. Radiation therapy has been used in brain cancer treatment, breast cancer treatment, head and neck cancer treatments and other forms of the disease.

Patients also may have other advanced cancer treatment options. One of these may be proton therapy. But what is proton therapy and why is considered viable among advanced cancer treatment options?

Proton therapy is similar to radiation therapy in many ways. The side effects of proton therapy and radiation therapy resemble each other: soreness and skin redness in the part being treated, headaches, fatigue and more, among other symptoms.

However, even though proton therapy is a form of radiation, it is a superior form compared to traditional radiation. In traditional radiation, the radiation keeps going beyond targeted areas to other tissue.

The radiation in proton therapy stops at the tissue that is targeted. In breast cancer care, for example, proton therapy is more desirable because it targets only the tumor, and does not travel to nearby organs such as the heart and 50% less radiation to the lungs.

Proton therapy is also one of the more excellent and effective advanced cancer treatment options for prostate cancer patients, as well. The statistics of men who had proton therapy and showed no signs of cancer recurrence after five years are very encouraging: specifically, 99% of men with low-risk prostate cancer, 94% of men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer, and 74% of men with high-risk prostate cancer had no cancer after five years of follow-up.

Another advantage to administering proton therapy treatment is that, compared to x-rays, it reduces by 59% the radiation dose to gastrointestinal structures. In addition, targeted proton therapy as a prostate cancer treatment has drastically reduced the levels of impotence in prostate cancer patients.

Patients in need of head and neck cancer treatment also benefit from proton therapy as one of their advanced cancer treatment options. Cancerous tumors of the brain and spinal cord are diagnosed in 23,800 adults and 4,830 children every year. The majority of these are brain tumors, and about 15% of all primary brain tumors are glioblastomas. Promising results have been shown when proton therapy is used to treat these tumors as part of a patient’s advanced cancer treatment options.

In the fight against cancer, it is reassuring to know that proton therapy is among the advanced cancer treatment options. Patients, families, researchers and staff all together create an entire treatment plan to produce the most positive outcome possible, and proton therapy many times will play a key role in that process.