When should proton radiation therapy be used to treat brain tumors?

Abstract

Jay S Loeffler, MD, FACR, FASTRO, is an honors graduate of both Williams College (MA, USA) and Brown University School of Medicine (RI, USA). Loeffler completed his radiation oncology training at the Harvard Joint Center for Radiation Therapy, where he served as Chief Resident in 1985–1986, after completing a year of postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health Radiobiology Laboratory with Jack Little. Since 1986 he has served on the faculty at Harvard Medical School (MA, USA), initially at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (MA, USA) and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (MA, USA). He also served as Director of the Brain Tumor Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital from 1988 to 1996. He was recruited to the Massachusetts General Hospital (MA, USA) in 1996 as Director of the Northeast Proton Therapy Center. He served as the Andreas Soriano Professor and is currently the Herman and Joan Suit Professor of Radiation Oncology, Harvard Medical School and Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology since 2000. Loeffler is an authority on the treatment of benign and malignant brain tumors. He is an author of over 210 peer-reviewed publications, 180 book chapters and review articles, and co-editor of nine textbooks in the fields of radiation oncology and neuro-oncology. He has served as the principal investigator on a large program project grant from the National Cancer Institute concerning proton therapy. He has served on numerous journal editorial boards in the field of oncology. Loeffler is a Fellow of the American College of Radiology and the American Society of Radiation Oncology and is a Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.