|
Cancer Patients Get Higher Cure Rate With Proton Therapy |
Proton beam therapy was confined to research labs until Loma Linda University Medical Center in Southern California opened the world's first hospital-based proton facility in 1990. Now the treatment is becoming a more mainstream choice by radiation oncologists and their patients for treating certain cancerous tumors.
Newly released studies show that this treatment is an especially promising option for patients with certain types of lung cancer and prostate cancer.
While both standard X-ray radiation and proton beam therapy can control cancer if given in sufficient doses, X-ray therapy is not as precise and can damage surrounding healthy tissues and organs. This forces radiation physicians to use lesser doses to minimize negative side effects.
Proton therapy, on the other hand, is the most precise form of radiation treatment available, conforming to the pattern of the cancer. Radiation oncologists can use higher doses of proton radiation to control and manage cancer while significantly reducing damage to healthy tissues and vital organs.
A new study of 393 men, conducted by Loma Linda and the Northeast Proton Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, suggests that radiation therapists using proton therapy can safely deliver higher doses of radiation to patients with prostate cancer, which significantly improves the patients' rate of survival.
The five-year disease-free survival rate for those who received high-dose proton radiation therapy was promising. Only 17 percent showed evidence of recurrence of prostate cancer, whereas 35 percent of those who received the conventional dose experienced a recurrence. Further, less than 2 percent of those who chose proton therapy experienced the kind of side effects associated with X-ray treatment.
Patients with stage 1 lung cancer also showed good results when treated with proton therapy. A recent study, conducted by Loma Linda researchers and reported in the October 2004 issue of the medical journal Chest, followed 68 patients with stage 1 lung cancer who were treated exclusively with proton therapy over a two-week period. After a median wait of 30 months, researchers reported an overall three-year local control rate (meaning the cancer had not spread) and disease-free survival rate of 74 percent.
Proton beam therapy also has shown to be highly effective in treating tumors in the head, brain, and neck. For more information on proton beam therapy, call (800) PROTONS [(800) 776-8667] or go to www.proton-therapy.org. -NU |
|
| |
|
|
