It is the radiation oncologist’s mantra. Deliver the maximum dose of radiation to the malignant tumor, while limiting damage to healthy surrounding tissue. In proton therapy, achieving this balance is equally one part particles and another part contriving the particles, once accelerated to nearly the speed of light, to mimic the shape of a tumor with sub-millimeter precision.
Today more than ever, new tools are enabling physicians at the Proton Therapy Center at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer to harness supercharged proton particles and conform them more closely to the rugged landscape and uneven contours of a cancer tumor. Using a technology known as pencil beam scanning, also known as spot scanning, protons are given the mission: home in on cancer cells and destroy. As much an art form as a war tactic, pencil beam has the ability to treat the most complex of tumors, like those of the prostate, brain, base of the skull and eye, while leaving healthy tissue and critical structures untouched. The powerful coupling of strength and accuracy offers unmatched capacity to treat a patient’s tumor without compromising quality of life.
In nearly a decade since pencil beam’s birth in a Swiss physics institute, the world’s leading practitioners in radiation science at M. D. Anderson’s Proton Therapy Center will integrate the tested technology into the institution’s multidisciplinary approach to cancer care and translational research.
Tomorrow, a bit more about this new and exciting technology.
Have a good Monday.
Blessings,
Rick
Monday, April 13, 2009
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1 comments:
How do they know where the tumor is? I thought that the cancer in the prostate was too small to be seen with ultrasound. How can they focus on the cancer cells and not touch the healthy cells?
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