Proton therapy

Proton therapy or proton beam therapy is a medical procedure, a type of particle therapy that uses a beam of protons to irradiate diseased tissue, most often in the treatment of cancer. Proton therapy's chief advantage over other types of external beam radiotherapy is that as a charged particle the dose is deposited over a narrow range and there is minimal exit dose.

Description

Proton therapy is a type of external beam radiotherapy that uses ionizing radiation. In proton therapy, medical personnel use a particle accelerator to target a tumor with a beam of protons. These charged particles damage the DNA of cells, ultimately killing them or stopping their reproduction. Cancerous cells are particularly vulnerable to attacks on DNA because of their high rate of division and their reduced abilities to repair DNA damage.

Due to their relatively large mass, protons have little lateral side scatter in the tissue; the beam does not broaden much, stays focused on the tumor shape and delivers only low-dose side-effects to surrounding tissue. All protons of a given energy have a certain range; very few protons penetrate beyond that distance. Furthermore, the dose delivered to tissue is maximum just over the last few millimeters of the particle’s range; this maximum is called the Bragg peak often referred to as the SOBP.