Esophageal Patients Have Less Side Effects With Proton Therapy

Scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have discovered that esophageal cancer patients who are treated with proton therapy may experience less toxic side effects than those treated by older radiation therapies.

For the study, researchers compared two kinds of X-ray radiation with proton therapy, an innovative, precise approach that targets tumors while minimizing harm to surrounding tissues.

They examined close to 600 patients and found that proton therapy helped to lower the number of side effects in the patients, including nausea, blood abnormalities and loss of appetite.

While proton therapy did not make a difference for all patients with esophageal cancer, it did in many, including helping with nausea, fatigue, lack of appetite, blood abnormalities and lung and heart health.

Researchers noted how important the news is for the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which will open the Maryland Proton Treatment Center this fall. The center will "provide one of the newest and highly precise forms of radiation therapy available, pencil beam scanning (PBS), which targets tumors while significantly decreasing radiation doses to healthy tissue," according to a news release.

However, researchers reiterated that proton therapy is just one of several new methods for treating cancer. Others include the following, courtesy of a news release:

-Selective Internal Radiation therapy.
-Gammapod.
-Thermal therapies.