Has anyone had proton radiation for oral cancer ? I'm starting it next week and interested in the side effects.

No I've had imrt. But welcome and I'm sure someone here will be along. Take care!

Are they using IMPT?

no, its a new type of radiation called proton therapty.

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

yes it is IMPT and my insurance Aetna covers 100 %

Jimb

Great. Now after you get through this TX, you can be the experiential expert on it on the OCF forum. An additional reason proton therapy has languished is that prior to IMPT, PT was just as blunderbuss as the old RT. Keep us posted on your progress. It would be great to have a radiation protocol that did not have as bad side effects.
Charm

ok I will

The articles that I have read on IMPT (years ago I mind you)indicate that it's delivery is similar to say a smart bomb where the docs can design the deliver to actually enter the body without damaging any cells getting to the pre programmed target and conform to the target and destroy it with minumal colleteral damage. Unfortunately it's uses were less than IMRT and there aren't that many cancer centers that have the technology and it's used most often in hard to reach tumors like brain tumors. I saw a lot of promise in IMPT in uses with OC as it could potentially all but wipe out many of our post Tx side effects but it seemed like it was years away. I don't remember anyone having IMPT used for OC before so I would be interested in hearing more about your particular Primary and overall Dx.