Milestone in cancer therapy: 20 years of proton beams for children
Published: Friday, Jul 5th 2024, 10:20
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Twenty years ago in Villigen AG, a young child with cancer was treated with proton radiation for the first time in Europe. Since then, 800 children and young people at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) have undergone proton irradiation.
Previously, the treatments were only possible for children aged seven and over, as the PSI announced on Friday. This is because children have to remain still during the entire treatment. For small children, this is only possible under anesthesia.
This was a problem. It was only with the support of anesthetists from the University Children's Hospital Zurich that the infants could be put under anesthesia in the right place. Older children had already been irradiated with protons since 1999.
On July 5, 2004, an almost two-year-old child with a tumor in his eye socket received proton radiation under anesthesia. Since then, 60 to 70 children and adolescents have been treated at PSI every year. The youngest patient at PSI was three months old: the child had already been born with cancer.
More precise therapy
Protons, like photons in normal radiotherapy, kill cancer cells. However, according to the PSI, it is possible to precisely determine how deep the particles penetrate in the case of protons. In addition, they hardly lose any energy on their way to the tumor.
Children with cancer in particular benefit from precise proton therapy, as the PSI explained. They have a higher risk of radiation causing long-term damage such as hearing loss, learning disabilities or impaired growth.
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