Abstract
The aim of radiotherapy is to sterilize all cells of a tumor with minimal damage to surrounding normal cells. By using a high energy proton beam for the irradiation of ocular tumors, one comes close to achieving this goal: protons penetrating tissue lose their energy by ionization in such a manner that the energy loss rises by a factor 3–4 just before a sharp stop (the Bragg peak). The scattering of protons within the tissue is much smaller than with usual radiations. The sharp stop in the Bragg peak allows matching of the depth of the irradiated volume to the depth of the tumor in the eye by adjusting the proton range in the tissue. The low scattering of protons allows the irradiated volume to be limited laterally by the use of a collimator which is shaped to the profile of the tumor to be irradiate.
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© 1993 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Egger, E., Perret, C., Zografos, L., Gailloud, C. (1993). Proton Beam Irradiation of Choroidal Melanomas at the PSI: Technique and Results. In: Alberti, W.E., Sagerman, R.H. (eds) Radiotherapy of Intraocular and Orbital Tumors. Medical Radiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-97011-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-97011-5_7
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