Proton cancer therapy ‘proves effective’

The world may be entering an era where numerous devastating side-effects associated with tradition brain tumor treatment can be avoided entirely.

A new study has been released praising proton beam therapy after it was announced Ashya King was expected to make a full recovery and had returned to school.

New research has found that proton beam therapy for cancer causes fewer side effects than conventional radiotherapy.

All the patients who took part in the study, led by Dr Torunn Yock from the Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States, had the most common kind of malignant brain tumour in children, known as medulloblastoma. Moreover, the effects this therapy has on cognitive abilities are less severe.

The latest study into the benefits and effectiveness of proton therapy was carried out at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Researchers found that proton beam therapy appears as the safer option for the treatment of children with brain cancer medulloblastoma.

The difference between proton beam and photon-based treatments is it uses charged particles rather that X-rays to deliver the radiation to the cancer patients. With proton therapy however, the radiation administered targets the tumor cells directly, minimizing or even eliminating damage to the surrounding cells.

Fifty-five of the patients had the tumour partially or completely removed through surgery, while all patients received chemotherapy as well as proton beam therapy.

The alternative treatment made came to public attention after Brett and Naghmeh King took their son Ashya out of hospital and travelled to the Czech Republic for proton therapy, which was not initially offered to them on the NHS.

Two UK centres for proton beam therapy are now being planned (Manchester and London) which are due to open in 2018 [1].

“At 3 years after treatment, 12% of patients had serious hearing loss”, the statement continues.

In the five-year mark, 55 percent of the patients experienced neuroendocrine system problems in which the growth hormone was most affected.

“Our results indicate that proton therapy maintains excellent cure rates in pediatric medulloblastoma while reducing long-term side effects, particularly in hearing and neurocognitive function, and eliminating cardiac, pulmonary, gastrointestinal and reproductive effects”, Yock said.

Proton therapy is a highly targeted treatment often used on hard-to-reach cancers and has a lower risk of damaging other body tissue.

The paper said: “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”.

They were eventually freed and Ashya underwent the treatment with apparent success.