Proton therapy has become an increasingly renowned and preferred method worldwide. The results and experience acquired at proton centres around the world and in the Prague Proton Center unambiguously confirm that proton therapy opens up entirely new ways of treating cancer.
Proton radiotherapy is not a new method; the first exclusively clinical (not academic) centre was established in 1991 (Loma Linda, California, USA) and since then the number of patients treated with protons has reached many tens of thousands. This is a technologically completely mature treatment, verified in the clinical setting.
Despite many years of proton radiotherapy being used for the treatment of selected types of cancer, some healthcare professionals are still of the opinion that the higher radiation doses used in standard (photon) radiotherapy to which healthy tissues are exposed do not justify the use of proton beam therapy.
Brand new clinical data from large studies say the opposite, namely that the frequency of acute toxicity (complications observed after 90 days from the start of treatment) is significantly lower with proton irradiation than in a comparable group of patients treated with photon therapy.
A team of physicians from the University of Washington monitored almost 1,500 patients with various types of cancer, of whom about 400 underwent proton beam therapy while the rest were irradiated with state-of-the-art photon radiotherapy techniques. All the patients from this group were irradiated and at the same time were administered concomitant chemoradiotherapy. The study researchers focused on the emergence of toxicity at grade 3 or higher, which already requires hospitalisation and intensive medical treatment and care.
Specifically, serious complications were reported in 11.5% of patients irradiated with protons as compared with 27.6% of patients irradiated with photons.
*Link: www.medicalnewstoday.com/…
