Abstract
Investigation into the use of heavy ions for therapeutic purposes was initially pioneered at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the 1970s [1, 2]. More recently, however, significant advances in determining the safety and efficacy of using heavy ions in the hospital setting have been reported in Japan and Germany [3, 4]. These promising results have helped to resurrect interest in the establishment of hospital-based heavy ion therapy in the United States. In line with these efforts, world experts in the field of heavy ion therapy were invited to attend the first annual International Symposium on Ion Therapy, which was held at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, from November 12 to 14, 2014. A brief overview of the results and discussions that took place during the symposium are presented in this article.
Highlights
Heavy ion therapy offers several theoretical advantages over conventional radiotherapy, including higher biological effectiveness and a lower integral radiation dose delivered to healthy tissues surrounding the tumor, enabling dose escalation and leading to improved tumor control with less adverse effects [5]
As an initial step in establishing a national particle therapy research center, the first annual International Symposium on Ion Therapy was held at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas [6], which was attended by radiobiology, physics, and clinical experts in heavy ion therapy from all over the world, and by heavy ion vendors, to discuss the current state of the field and to propose future directions for further investigation and development
Planning a hospital-based heavy ion therapy center highlighted as being critical to achieve the proposed clinical goals; the inclusion of an ion gantry was suggested to be an essential part of the heavy ion center
Summary
Heavy ion therapy offers several theoretical advantages over conventional (photon and proton) radiotherapy, including higher biological effectiveness and a lower integral radiation dose delivered to healthy tissues surrounding the tumor, enabling dose escalation and leading to improved tumor control with less adverse effects [5]. A few disease sites were discussed that could be initially studied to demonstrate the potential advantage of heavy ion therapy, including pancreatic cancer and oligometastatic disease for which current conventional methods cannot deliver sufficient therapeutic dose without causing significant toxicities. Of interest was the current model used by The National Centre of Oncological Hadrontherapy in Italy, which has established external reference (referral) centers where knowledgeable teams evaluate patient suitability for carbon ion therapy. This would help to minimize patients’ disappointment if they are unable to be treated with carbon ions
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