Hi all!
I’m sorry I haven’t been on in a while due to two recent hospitalizations, possible cancer, and now in a nursing facility for rehab. I may post my own issues later, which is still on going including a PT/CT scan.
Anyway, I had Proton Radiation about 5 years ago, and believe it saved my life, besides having great doctors to treat me. It was my 7th Cancer, although I put two cancers together for treatment, but it means a lot to me adding them all up since they were found a month apart. Protons are pretty much like IMRT, except I forget the type of radiation it is. Its faste than IMRT, more Radiation stays in the cancer to kill it l, and I only had like three spots, Cancer, in my neck to zap silently, and it is ailent. It only takes a minute or two, but setting the person up on the table may take much longer it’s so precise. The radiation stays in the tumor,and has no exit like IMRT leaving a bald spot in the back of your head due to the exit of radiation.
I had six weeks of radiation for recurrence, which may be about 60Gy, but I had surgery with radiation about 4-6 weeks before that with IORT about 30-40Gy, which is radiation in the operating room along with surgery. Few doctors do this, and mine was one who of the doctors who helped developed IORT.
When I did protons, it had to be for a recurrence or certain type of head and neck cancer. Today, I believe it’s open to more and primary cancers, not just recurrences.
I couldn’t see doing protons with my first cancer as I had 17 spots to be zapped. It would take forever with protons, but there is a newer type of protonsachines that zais the cancers continuously like IMRT does,so it’s faster, and can do multiple spots otherwise they had to move the machine, and change the lens forone. There may be 7 or 8 of the locations in the U.S.tgat has this IMPT. I believe MD Anderson in Texas has both types as an example, and their site may explain it it in much more detail. There is a website I recall off hand as an association with about 30 Proton Centers in the U.S.
https://www.proton-therapy.org/science/https://www.mdanderson.org/patients...nters-clinics/proton-therapy-center.htmlGood luck, and hope this helps
