We have communicated with a helpful ANA Forum Member named Paul and he cited some medical information about Proton Therapy. He brought up some interesting points. We will frame Paul's points as questions and we will ask for the doctor we meet with to provide medical journals or studies to back up any assertions made. We will report our findings later. We also have other upcoming consultations for other treatments that we are considering.
1. According to
http://medicalphysicsweb.org/cws/article/research/50584Does it state that the Accuracy of Proton therapy is -1+2mm?
Does this mean they will typically radiate 2mm of good tissue to ensure the tumour is treated?
It is advertised that children are very often proton therapy patients. It is perceived to be very safe for children, who by definition have small organs. Is Proton Therapy safe to the surrounding tissues? Why could children have successful proton therapy treatments if the accuracy seems less than stellar? Please support this with a medical journal citation.
Per Paul's research: Gamma knife and Cyberknife this is typically 0 + 0.5mm
2. According to
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2832065/It might be understood that for Proton Therapy, the Smallest field size is 1.2cm.... So is this is the smallest diameter beam they can produce?... Gamma Knife is 4mm Cyberknife is 5mm. Is this clearly a problem if any part of the tumour is smaller than 1.2cm?
3. Is there a problem of range uncertainty with Proton Therapy? Is the Range uncertainty of protons 2-3mm? Please see these articles:
a.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3376899/#R2b.
http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9155/57/5/1159
