The Importance Of Proton Therapy In Treating Cancer

 

From proton therapy for breast cancer to proton therapy for head and neck cancer to proton therapy for prostate cancer, proton therapy is blazing new trails when it comes to treating various types of cancer. Cancer is an absolutely terrifying diagnosis, to be sure, but proton therapy for breast cancer and for various other types of cancer can provide new hope to many cancer sufferers throughout the United States and beyond it as well.

When it comes to proton therapy for breast cancer, proton radiation therapy is ideal for a number of different reasons. When you get proton therapy for breast cancer instead of traditional radiation therapy, you avoid a lot of radiation getting sent to other parts of your body. This is due to the fact that proton therapy for breast cancer and proton therapy for other cancers works with a very targeted approach and is able to avoid tissues that have not yet been impacted by the spread of cancer, something that prevents further health issues related to radiation down the line.

When we break it down by body part, proton therapy for breast cancer is incredibly effective without harming other organs. Over the course of treatment for proton therapy for breast cancer, no radiation is likely to affect your heart. Your lungs, while they will still be impacted on some level by the radiation that goes along with proton therapy, will get about fifty percent less radiation than they would during the typical course of radiation therapy and treatment. Even your gastrointestinal system will get up to sixty nine percent less radiation than they would even when compared to the radiation they would get from the typical x-ray of that part of your body, something that is certainly impressive by any means.

Aside from proton therapy for breast cancer, proton therapy has also proven to be very effective for treating prostate cancer, especially when a patient’s prostate cancer has been caught early on. For those who have been diagnosed with low risk prostate cancer, up to ninety nine percent of patients who had been treated with proton therapy for prostate cancer were still cancer free with no sign of relapse after five years since completing the course of treatment.

Even for those with intermediate risk prostate cancer, the odds are good when proton therapy is pursued. For such patients, very nearly ninety five percent (ninety four percent, to be more exact) will still be cancer free after that same span of five years. For people who have been diagnosed with high risk prostate cancer, the odds of remaining cancer free remain good, even if they are not as high. Still, however, seventy four percent of patients who had at first been diagnosed with high risk prostate cancer were still cancer free after a full five years since the initial diagnosis and course of proton therapy treatments were conducted.

From proton therapy for breast cancer to proton therapy for prostate cancer, proton therapy is also able to preserve more quality of life in cancer patients than regular radiation therapy. This can be seen most clearly in cases of prostate cancer, no matter what the risk level at diagnosis, that were treated with proton therapy specially formulated for prostate cancer.

For prostate cancer patients who undergo traditional methods of radiation, a lack of a sex life or sex drive is common both during and after the treatments are conducted. For proton therapy, however, this is far from the case. An astounding ninety four percent of men who had undergone proton therapy for prostate cancer were able to pick up a relatively normal is not completely normal sex life once their treatments were finished, even if they were not able to do so during the course of their cancer treatments.

From proton therapy for breast cancer to proton therapy as a treatment for prostate cancer, proton cancer therapy is truly the way of the future. With its high success rates and its minimal (as possible) side effects, there are many reasons for cancer patients of all severities to choose proton therapy as part of their treatment plan for various cancers.