الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Cancer is a serious disease that is responsible for one every eight deaths worldwide. The main therapeutic regimes until now are based on the use of radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery. Radiotherapy is one of the main non-invasive methods that inhibits cellular proliferation of the tumor cells. The traditional irradiation protocol usually includes a set of fractionated X-ray beam sessions (Koturbash et al., 2017). The irradiated cancer cells are able to develop resistance to irradiation. This usually leads to tumor recurrence which is considered to be a disappointing clinical challenge. Charged particles such as protons are used for irradiating tumor cells. They are characterized by their physical properties which enable them to travel a finite distance into tissue, as determined by their energy. The highest energy is released within a tightly defined region called “Bragg peak” (Lühr et al., 2018). Therefore, proton beam radiation therapy offers theoretical advantages over photon radiation which may be of benefit in radiation dose escalation. In particular, the rapid fall off of distal dose in proton therapy allows minimization of integral dose to surrounding organs at risk (Thompson et al., 2014). |