Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy are the "Three Musketeers" of cancer treatment. However, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite and hair loss are all common side effects of radiation therapy. ...... These common side effects of cancer patients after radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and the sharp decline in the quality of life make many cancer patients even lose the motivation to live. Especially for children with brain tumors, the intellectual decline, growth retardation, and abnormal hormone secretion due to atrophy of pituitary development caused by radiotherapy are great obstacles to children's long-term survival.
The medical community was in dire need of a treatment that would reduce the side effects of cancer treatment and improve patients' quality of life, and proton therapy was born.
Proton therapy has been around for half a century, and to date, more than 130,000 patients have been treated with proton therapy worldwide. Proton therapy has been recognized as a "miracle weapon against cancer" by many cancer patients. The first step in the process is to make sure that you are able to get the best out of the proton therapy.
The principle of proton therapy is to accelerate protons to about 70% of the speed of light, rapidly penetrate the human body, and then suddenly slow down and stop when it reaches the site of the tumor, forming a sharp "Bragg peak" and releasing maximum energy to kill the tumor. It can be simply understood as "stereotactic blasting" or "precision guidance" for tumors.
Proton therapy is actually a form of radiotherapy, which uses charged particles to enter the body and release energy to kill tumor cells. Since it's all radiotherapy, what's better than current radiation therapy?
When it comes to cancer treatment, the best treatment for cancer that everyone wants is a way to remove all the cancer cells from the body without harming any of the normal cells. The X-rays of normal radiotherapy start from entering the surface of the body and pass through the normal tissues to reach the tumor before the whole process of releasing radiation energy, the energy from the beginning of entering the body that is exponentially decreasing, and after passing through the tumor tissues, there is still energy to continue to release.
The difference between proton therapy and normal radiotherapy
Radiation therapy - scatter-bullet bird mode: radiotherapy is to use strong radioactive isotope rays, such as X and Y rays to kill the cancer cells, the rays start from the surface of the human body to pass through the tumor tissues, the energy continues to be released, there is no precise selectivity of radiotherapy for the irradiated cells, and it has inhibition and damaging effect on normal cells around the tumor cells while destroying them. It also has an inhibitory and damaging effect on normal cells in the surrounding area.?
Proton - Stereoscopic Targeted Blast: Proton therapy relies on positively charged nuclear particles rather than traditional photon beams, and the proton energy can be precisely targeted to provide highly concentrated proton beam irradiation to the tumor, which does not cause damage to the surrounding normal tissues and minimizes the side effects.
Characteristics of proton therapy
l Short treatment time: 5-15 minutes each time;
l Number of treatments: 15-40 times, once a day;
l High efficiency: almost no recurrence of treated foci;
l Good removal effect: high dose irradiation, higher precision, complete removal of tumor tissue, almost no residue;
l Side effects: no damage to surrounding normal tissue structure and minimal side effects. p>
lSmall side effects: almost no damage to adjacent vital tissues and organs, almost no side effects;
lNo effect on immune function: almost no effect on patient's own immune system;
lConvenient: no need for anesthesia (except for some children's tumors), no need for hospitalization.
Why is proton therapy so expensive?
The construction of a proton therapy center can be consuming. From the purchase of equipment, building design, construction building, equipment import, installation and commissioning, personnel training, completed and put into use a series of work, less than a few years, more than ten years to complete the construction of an independent proton center.
The proton therapy equipment is more than ten meters high, usually requiring 2-3 floors, and covers an even more astonishing area, usually more than 5,000 square meters. Such a huge project, which takes years and consumes manpower and material resources, costs up to hundreds of millions of RMB to build a proton therapy center, with additional annual equipment maintenance costs in the tens of millions. Therefore, although proton therapy is very effective, but the medical institutions have to consider the cost of investment, so the cost of proton therapy is much higher than other radiotherapy technology. At present, the cost of proton proton in China is 278,000 yuan, which is not included in the medical insurance, but some provinces and cities have been included in the medical insurance, you need to consult the local medical insurance management unit, or call 400-626-9916 to understand. In addition, proton therapy brings other costs such as hospitalization fees, examination fees, medication, etc. is the normal reimbursement of health insurance.
Your concern about the cost of proton therapy
Currently, the cost of proton therapy in China is 278,000 yuan;
The cost of proton therapy in Japan is about 300 yen (200,000 yuan), but if a domestic patient chooses to go to Japan for proton therapy, the airfare, room and board, ground transportation, and translation costs will be added, making the overall cost more or less the same as that in China;
The United States is the earliest country to carry out proton therapy, started this advanced therapy around 1950, Japan followed by about 1990, China is slightly slower progress, from 2000 onwards, but the domestic proton therapy centers doctors are to the United States, Japan to further study the proton technology, the completion of the treatment need not be questioned. Therefore, domestic cancer patients can make a reasonable choice according to the economic situation and their own condition, and cannot blindly respect foreign countries.
Children's tumors preferred proton therapy
Chinese Anti-Cancer Association survey data show that children's cancer has become the second leading cause of death in children. With the improvement of cure rate, about 83% of pediatric cancer patients become long-term survivors. But the after-effects of cancer treatment can lead to lifelong health effects.
Radiotherapy is the treatment usually used for solid tumors in children, however, it can have a large impact on children and their future physical and intellectual development. For example, a young child's brain develops and matures most rapidly between the ages of 0 and 3, and the younger the child receives radiotherapy, the greater the decline in IQ within 5 years. Therefore, if not necessary, the children will try to avoid or reduce the dose of radiation therapy for the brain.
In addition to the central nervous system, radiation also has a significant effect on rapidly dividing cells, so children's height, vision, and reproductive system (ovaries or testes) may be damaged. As the survival rate of children with tumors increases, more long-term side effects of radiation may also appear in children's growth, such as coronary artery disease of the cardiovascular system, and an increased chance of stroke.
With the advantage of reducing the radiation dose, proton radiation therapy is an inevitable trend in the future of radiation therapy for pediatric oncology.
The acceptance of proton therapy for pediatric tumors is arguably the highest among cancers in advanced countries such as Europe and the United States. Due to the rapid growth and development of children, their bodies are more sensitive to the side effects caused by the radiation dose, so the benefits of proton therapy are particularly prominent in the treatment of children's tumors.
Where are the best proton therapy centers for the country?
The number of proton therapy centers has roughly doubled worldwide in recent years,*** with about 80 proton therapy centers, including more than 30 in the United States, and nine hospitals with proton therapy centers in Japan***.
Japan is a medical powerhouse and has a very high level of development in proton therapy. Proton therapy was first developed in the United States, and the rise of proton therapy in Japan was the second country after the United States, and the first in Asia to have proton therapy machines.
Japan is not too far away from our country, so it is not difficult to go to Japan for proton therapy, making it an ideal place for patients to go abroad for proton therapy.
National Cancer Research Center East Hospital was the first in Asia to introduce a medically specialized proton therapy system, and the second medical institution in the world to begin clinical application. The hospital's rich clinical experience in proton therapy is among the best in the world. Moreover, the hospital has strong scientific research capabilities. In addition to clinical medicine
, the hospital has several rare talents specialized in medical physics who are involved in the research of the most advanced proton therapy technology and have achieved world-leading scientific research results in visualization of the world's most advanced irradiation fields.
The process of Chinese patients going to Japan to receive proton therapy
First of all, Chinese patients who want to go to Japan to receive proton therapy need to do an assessment of whether to accept it or not, that is, the expert consultation, the patient needs to organize the history of the case and other data information in advance, translate it into Japanese and send it to the Japanese hospitals associated with the proton therapy, by the expert consultation assessment, if the assessment results are suitable, then the hospital will send the detailed information to the hospital, and then the patient will receive the information. If the results are suitable, the hospital will provide the patient with detailed information about the treatment program and treatment costs, and then the patient will decide whether to go to Japan for treatment; if not, the hospital will also provide the patient with feedback on the specific reasons for the inappropriateness of the treatment.
MultiMutualHealth's tip: Proton therapy is not a cure-all, and there are certain indications. For example, proton therapy is not always suitable for patients with non-solid tumors (such as lymphoma, leukemia, and other hematologic tumors), tumors with multiple distant metastases and more than three metastatic foci, and patients who have received radiation or radioactive particle implantation within one year at the same site.