Proton Therapy may Provide Better Prognosis Than Other Radiation Methods in Prostate Cancer Patients

Proton therapy for prostate cancer patients may present better overall outcomes when compared to Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT)

Proton therapy treatment among prostate cancer patients has shown overall good survival rates and fewer complications when compared to commonly used Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy treatment.

This new study was presented at the 4th Annual Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group North-America (PTCOG-NA) Conference on in Chicago.

Proton Beam Therapy for Cancer Treatment
Proton therapy is a form of radiotherapy for cancer treatment which uses a proton beam that is targeted precisely on the tumor cells, destroying them with minimal damage to surrounding healthy tissue. Proton therapy can treat various types of cancer.

‘The five-year survival rate with proton therapy in prostate cancer patients has shown a good 93.25% results, when compared to 88.43% score with Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy for treatment ’

"This new evidence supports that proton therapy is at least as good as standard radiation therapy and may be significantly better in some areas, especially protecting normal tissue outside of the prostate," said the study’s lead author William Hartsell, MD, medical director of the Northwestern Medicine Chicago Proton Center.

"In addition, the evidence shows that proton therapy is advantageous for younger patients who we are most concerned about developing secondary cancers later in life."

Proton therapy uses protons - heavy, positively charged atomic particles - instead of the standard X-rays used in conventional radiation therapy. Protons deposit much of their energy, or dose, directly in the tumor and then stop, whereas conventional radiation continues to deposit the dose beyond the tumor.

Advanced Proton Therapy Shows Promise To Treat Lung Cancer Recurrence
More than 222,500 people will be diagnosed and 155,870 will die from lung cancer in 2017, with recurrence the primary cause of death in these patients.

Dr. Hartsell and colleagues reviewed the records of over 28,000 Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) patients and 851 proton patients who received treatment from 2006-2012, using the Medicare and SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End-Results Reporting) national databases.

The proton patients were matched to Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) patients in a 1:5 matching process using several parameters, including comorbidity index, cancer stage, tumor grade, adjuvant chemo/hormone therapy, age, zip code and ethnicity.