Abstract
Dr. Robert Wilson described the rationale for using proton beam therapy for the treatment of cancer as early as 1946. The early proton facilities were mainly physics research laboratories that seldom treated patients with cancer. We now have several dedicated proton facilities for the treatment of cancer. There are several current clinical applications for proton beam therapy including prostate, lung, pediatric, central nervous system cancers and several other malignancies. In properly selected patients, proton beam therapy reduces the dose that is delivered to normal tissues and can reduce both side effects from treatment and the risk of developing secondary malignancies from irradiation. While proton beam therapy is more expensive to deliver than photons, there is cost savings associated with reduced morbidity from treatment and reduced risk of secondary malignancy.
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Yajnik, S. (2013). An Introduction to Proton Beam Therapy. In: Proton Beam Therapy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5298-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5298-0_1
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