Pediatric considerations for proton therapy
Introduction Approximately 10,500 cases of childhood cancer are diagnosed each year, which represent about 1% of all new cancers in the United States. Nearly 45% of these cancers will either…
ONCOLOGY
Proton therapy for hematologic malignancies
Introduction As early as the 1970s, proton therapy was considered a promising treatment for hematologic malignancies, specifically for use in total nodal irradiation, the historic standard of care treatment for…
Head and neck
Introduction Radiation therapy, whether used as definitive treatment or as an adjuvant to surgery, is an essential component of treatment for many patients with head and neck cancer (HNC). Both…
Proton therapy for prostate cancer
Introduction The use of proton therapy for the treatment of cancer was first proposed by Robert Wilson in 1946. A beam of protons gives most of its dose at a…
Proton therapy for gynecologic malignancies
Introduction Each year more than 90,000 women are diagnosed with a gynecologic (ovarian, vulvar, vaginal, cervical, uterine, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal) cancer in the United States. Radiotherapy is often…
Physics quality assurance
Introduction This chapter describes the physics quality assurance (QA) program for the proton pencil beam scanning (PBS) gantry of the Hitachi ProBeat machine (Hitachi America, Ltd., Tarrytown, NY) at the…
Immobilization and simulation
Introduction Intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT) using pencil beam scanning (PBS) technology is advancing rapidly for delivering precise and more conformal doses to target volumes while sparing surrounding normal and critical…
Principles of intensity-modulated proton therapy treatment planning
Intensity-modulated proton therapy is effective for complex targets Proton beam therapy (PBT), with its characteristic Bragg peak, holds the promise of further reducing toxicity. Several techniques exist for the administration…
Proton radiotherapy for breast cancer
Introduction Numerous planning studies demonstrate superior dosimetry for proton radiotherapy compared with photon-based radiotherapy for breast cancers of all stages, even compared with intensity-modulated radiotherapy. Protons can reduce dose to…
Adult central nervous system tumors
Introduction For both primary and metastatic brain tumors, radiation therapy (RT) remains one of the standard treatment modalities. Although RT techniques using photons have greatly improved in recent decades, substantial…
