Proton beam therapy / Harald Paganetti.

"Version: 20170101"--Title page verso.

IOP science open access books

Introduction -- Why proton beams? -- Technical challenges -- Physics challenges -- Biological challenges -- Clinical challenges -- Outlook.

Cancer therapy is a multi-modality approach including surgery, systemic or targeted chemotherapy, radiation (external beam or radionuclide), and immunotherapy. Radiation is typically administered using external beam photon therapy. Proton therapy has been around for more than 60 years but was restricted to research laboratories until the 1990s. Since then clinical proton therapy has been growing rapidly with currently more than 50 facilities worldwide. The interest in proton therapy stems from the physical properties of protons allowing for advanced dose sculpting around the target and sparing of healthy tissue. This review first evaluates the basics of proton therapy physics and technology and then outlines some of the current physical, biological, and clinical challenges. Solving these will ultimately determine whether proton therapy will continue on its path to becoming mainstream.

Final-year undergraduates, new PhD students and early-career scientists.

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Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Professor Harald Paganetti PhD is the Director of Physics Research at the Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School. He received his PhD in experimental nuclear physics in 1992 from the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany, and has been working in radiation therapy research on experimental as well as theoretical aspects since 1994. He has authored and co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and has edited two books on Proton Therapy. He has made significant contributions to the field of radiation oncology physics, many of which have found their way into clinical practice. Particularly, he is a pioneer in advanced Monte Carlo dose calculations for proton therapy treatment planning and is considered the world expert on the relative biological effectiveness of proton beams.

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