Jimb
Actually, DavidCPA's reference is very accurate and a valid question that you might want to ask your doctors about. IMPT is the acronym for intensity-modulated proton therapy. The proponents of IMPT claim
[quote]TF: Can you explain the main benefits of IMPT over standard proton therapy?
JT: IMPT can improve the quality of the dose distributions, similar to what IMRT [intensity-modulated radiotherapy] did for photon therapy. That means coming closer to the holy grail of radiation therapy: being able to apply more dose to the cancerous tumour while sparing organs at risk in the entrance path of the beam[/quote].
Proton Therapy: IMPT Proton therapy is hardly new, having been around over 40 years. It was originally experimental but only became available to patients around 1990 but according to the National Association for Proton Therapy (NAPT) and the Proton Therapy Consortium, after 22 years there are still only 10 Proton centers in operation and 7 in development since both the machines and the treatment are substantially more expensive than IMRT or even CyberKnife.
Here is what the National Cancer Institute says about proton therapy
[quote]Proton therapy: External-beam radiation therapy can be delivered by proton beams as well as the photon beams described above. Protons are a type of charged particle.
Proton beams differ from photon beams mainly in the way they deposit energy in living tissue. Whereas photons deposit energy in small packets all along their path through tissue, protons deposit much of their energy at the end of their path (called the Bragg peak) and deposit less energy along the way.
In theory, use of protons should reduce the exposure of normal tissue to radiation, possibly allowing the delivery of higher doses of radiation to a tumor (9). Proton therapy has not yet been compared with standard external-beam radiation therapy in clinical trials (10, 11).[/quote]
For the full article and footnotes, go here
NCI: Radiation therapy fact sheet It sounds good, but the clinical trials are not yet in, but if I had that option, I would have taken it(assuming my insurance would have covered it) since one of its claims is that the side effects are much less.
Charm
