Proton Treatment: Panacea to Treat Cancer
Cancer used to be considered an incurable disease. Someone who is inflicted with it had to reconcile with the fact that there was no cure for it. With the latest medical developments, cancer’s incurability could have been ended. Cancer patients could have found the answer to their seemingly endless bout with cancer.
In an interview with Dr. Ramesh Rengan, it was revealed that there is more effective but less harmful way of treating specific types of cancers. These include pediatric cancers and those that develop near the vital organs. Dr. Rengan is the medical director of Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) Proton Therapy Center in Seattle, Washington. He is also a researcher in the treatment of cancer through novel radiation approaches.
SCCA Proton Center
The SCCA Proton Therapy Center treats cancer by using highly targeted proton beam. The treatment that the center introduces just focuses on the tumor. The exposure to radiation is minimized. This means that the surrounding healthy tissue reducing the risk radiation related side effects. In the Pacific Northwest area, SCCA is the only proton therapy center.
Proton Therapy at Work
The very foundation of every cancer treatment is to deliver an effective treatment to the cancer. Every oncologist is challenged to design a way to deliver the treatment to the tumor while minimizing the damage to the surrounding organs. One concern in every cancer treatment is not just killing cancer cells but also the lessening the number of healthy cells that are injured during the treatment. The advantage with using protons in cancer patients is that the proton beam stops within the tumor itself.
Benefits of Photon Treatment
The use of protons in cancer treatment lessens radiation exposure to the surrounding healthy tissue. It reduces the exposure of healthy tissues to radiation leading to lessened development of secondary cancers. The precision of the use of protons is beneficial for patients whose tumors are close to critical organs or structures, those whose cancer have recurred after the initial treatment, and those with organs that are sensitive to radiation.
The use of proton beams to treat cancer is a big development for oncologists and cancer patients. The precision that the use of protons allows lessens the harm one gets from typical cancer related treatment. In a typical cancer radiation even the surrounding healthy tissues are heavily damaged. So the use of protons in the treatment of cancer is a big medical development. This could be the panacea to treat cancer. Read about it here