Getting cancer is a terrifying thing and getting your diagnosis is nothing if not a life altering moment in the course of your life. But getting a cancer diagnosis does not have to mean the end of the world – in fact, proton therapy for cancer has become one of the most cutting edge treatments of late, provide new hope for cancer patients all throughout the United States as well as in many other places throughout the world as well.
Proton therapy for cancer is often proposed as an alternative to the traditional course of radiation therapy, and is ideal for a number of reasons. For one, proton therapy for cancer is far less invasive than traditional radiation therapy due to the targeted approach of the therapy. Because of this targeted approach, proton therapy for cancer often spares the other organs not affected by the disease.
For instance, proton therapy for cancer gives nearly sixty percent less radiation to the gastrointestinal system than a common x-ray would. And your lungs will get up to fifty percent less radiation than if you had pursued a course of traditional radiation. Your heart will get hardly any radiation – if any radiation at all.
And proton therapy for cancer has been found to be remarkably effective for many different types of cancers. For instance, treating prostate cancer with proton cancer treatment has had excellent results. In those who were diagnosed with what was considered to be low risk prostate cancer and given proton therapy for cancer, the cure rate after five years after completing treatment was an astounding ninety nine percent. Even among those who were diagnosed with medium risk prostate cancer, the cure rate was high – more than ninety percent (ninety four percent, to be more exact). And high risk prostate cancer sufferers still have reason to hope when proton therapy for prostate cancer is introduced into their treatment regiment, as very nearly seventy five percent of said cancer patients are still cancer free five plus years after completing their course of proton therapy treatment.
Of course, the quality of life during and after completing treatment matters, but it is often far reduced once both chemotherapy and traditional radiation treatments have been pursued. Among prostate cancer patients, this typically means impotence and infertility, something that can be hugely demoralizing to men of all ages and backgrounds. Proton therapy for cancer and as a treatment of prostate cancer can very much change this, as for more than ninety percent of prostate cancer sufferers, proton therapy allows them to resume a relatively normal sex life after their course of treatment has been fully completed.
Proton therapy for cancer can also be used to effectively treat many other types of cancer as well. Proton therapy for head and neck cancer is also a viable treatment option, providing new hope for many patients who have brain tumors. Brain tumors are perhaps more common than the average person might realize, with as many as twenty three thousand and eight hundred adults diagnosed with a tumor of the brain or spinal cord – a malignant tumor, at that – each and every year. On top of that, more than four thousand and eight hundred children are diagnosed with similar cancerous tumors in that same span of time.
Brain and spinal cord tumors can be incredibly vast and unique, but glioblastomas are a type of brain tumor that actually account for up to fifteen percent of all brain tumors – all cancerous brain tumors – all throughout the United States and the world at large. Though they have been notoriously hard to treat, proton therapy for cancer can provide a form of treatment that is likely to be effective, primarily because of its intensely targeted approach.
Proton therapy for cancer is becoming incredibly common not only here in the United States but all throughout the United States. It’s become a very viable method of treatment, one that has provided hope and a future to countless cancer patients throughout the world on a whole.