The objective of modern oncological treatment is to ensure patients the maximum chance of recovery while minimising adverse effects related to the treatment. Today, this goal can be achieved with proton therapy.
Proton radiotherapy is a gentle method of cancer treatment with minimal side effects. It allows for accurate targeting of the proton beam to the target area (to the place of the original tumour) in the lung, and thus minimises exposure of surrounding tissues and organs to radiation.
Proton therapy is also always appropriate for those patients who have developed a secondary tumour after previous radiation, such as breast cancer, in previous years.
In order to achieve the maximum cancer treatment effect for lung cancer, it is vital to irradiate the tumour with high doses of radiation. Nonetheless, this goal is not often achieved in standard irradiation due to possible damage to the surrounding tissues (healthy tissue toxicity).
That is why our physicians and physicists started using a unique procedure – deep inspiration breath-hold technique. This method allows breathing movements to be minimised and thus the tumour to be irradiated with a high dose with maximum accuracy and at the same time with minimal exposure of healthy parts of the lung, the second lung, the heart, cardiac vessels and other organs in the mediastinum to radiation. In this way, proton therapy significantly increases the ratio between the chance to control the tumour, i.e., enhanced treatment effect, and the reduction of possible serious adverse effects.
