Patients may experience fewer side effects and complications when healthy tissues and organs are spared from unnecessary radiation. The goal of radiation therapy is to deliver the optimal amount of radiation to the target (the tumor), while minimizing the radiation to healthy parts of the body.
While this concept seems simple enough, putting it into practice requires highly sophisticated technology capable of extreme precision. That’s the power of proton therapy. It accurately and precisely targets the tumor while sparing the healthy tissue more than any other form of radiation therapy. With proton therapy, the great majority of unnecessary radiation outside the target is avoided completely.
Compared to traditional forms of radiation, proton therapy releases most of the radiation dose at an exact point inside the tumor and not along the path through which the beam exits the body. In fact, there is virtually no “exit dose” of radiation beyond the tumor volume, which means the protons stop at the tumor and do not continue on to harm healthy parts of the body. The end result is that healthy tissues and critical organs are spared from unnecessary radiation, and patients experience fewer side effects and complications.