Non-Toxic Proton Beam Therapy Can be an Effective Treatment for Medulloblastoma

Proton radiotherapy may not be as toxic to the rest of a child's body as conventional radiotherapy and can effectively treat medulloblastoma.

Proton beam therapy can treat pediatric brain tumor by causing fewer side effects than conventional radiotherapy, according to a recent study.

The study, led by Torunn Yock, Massachusetts General Hospital, Proton Center, Boston, and colleagues suggests that proton radiotherapy may not be as toxic to the rest of a child's body as conventional radiotherapy.

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‘Pediatric brain tumor or medulloblastoma can be treated using non-toxic proton beam therapy as it has lesser side effects than conventional radiotherapy.’

Compared with traditional radiotherapy, proton beam therapy is highly targeted and is used to treat hard-to-reach cancers, with a lower risk of damaging the surrounding tissue and causing side effects.

Proton beam therapy entered the news headlines in 2014, especially in the UK and Europe, when UK parents Brett and Naghmeh King took their son Ashya from Southampton General Hospital, UK, without doctors' permission so that he could be treated with proton beam therapy in Prague in the Czech Republic.

The authors say that the findings suggest that proton radiotherapy seems to result in an acceptable degree of toxicity and had similar survival outcomes to those achieved with photon-based radiotherapy.

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Although, there remain some effects of treatment on hearing, endocrine, and neurocognitive outcomes, particularly in younger patients, other late effects common in photon-treated patients, such as cardiac, pulmonary, and gastrointestinal toxic effects, were absent.

They concluded that proton radiotherapy resulted in acceptable toxicity and had similar survival outcomes to those noted with conventional radiotherapy, suggesting that the use of the treatment may be an alternative to photon-based treatments. The study appears in the Lancet Oncology.

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Source-ANI

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