Why Choose Proton Therapy

Head and neck radiation ranks among the most demanding treatment types both for patients and physicians. In the area of the head and neck, there are too many organs sensitive to radiation which may be damaged, meanwhile high doses are needed to destroy the tumour.

Standard radiotherapy is not always able to tackle this issue. Head and neck tumours are localized in close proximity to many high-risk structures which have a significantly lower ionising radiation tolerance (spinal cord, salivary glands, brain stem, swallowing pathways, eyes, optic nerve, etc.), which means that in the case of photon therapy, it is not always possible to apply a sufficient amount of radiation without damaging these organs.

The advantages of proton therapy in head and neck tumour irradiation over conventional radiotherapy are:

• Allows us to significantly reduce the dose of undesirable radiation to the brain, thus preventing the risk of development of memory impairment.
• Significantly reduces the dose of undesirable radiation to the spinal cord by up to 80%, thus preventing the development of myelopathy accompanied by movement impairment or even paralysis.
• Allows us to significantly reduce the dose to all optic structures (macula, cornea, retina, optic nerve), thus reducing the risk of visual impairment or loss.
• Also mitigates the risk of hearing impairment or loss, namely at high frequencies.
• Allows us to reduce the dose to the structure of swallowing pathways, thus decreasing the probability of swallowing difficulties, saliva production disorder, and necessary insertion of a nutrition feeding tube into the stomach (PEG).

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The diagram shows the radiation dose distribution in the body when using photon and proton therapies.

It is apparent that the proton beam irradiates only the target volume (the area where the tumour is or has been located), i.e., the radiation is targeted almost exclusively only at the affected tissue. On the contrary, photon radiation, owing to its physical properties, significantly affects also the surrounding healthy structures.