Journal of International Oncology ›› 2025, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (1): 48-52.doi: 10.3760/cma.j.cn371439-20240805-00007

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Research progress of proton therapy for esophageal cancer

Fu Chengrui, Li Baosheng, Huang Wei()   

  1. Department of Thoracic Radiotherapy, Cancer Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Jinan 250117, China
  • Received:2024-08-05 Revised:2024-12-16 Online:2025-01-08 Published:2025-01-21
  • Contact: Huang Wei E-mail:alvinbird@163.com

Abstract:

Esophageal cancer is one of the leading causes of death from cancer worldwide. Radiotherapy plays an important role in the treatment of esophageal cancer. Compared with photon radiotherapy, proton radiotherapy significantly reduces normal organ dose due to its unique biophysical properties, which makes this modality potential ideal for esophageal cancer treatment. Proton radiotherapy plays an important role in radical radiotherapy, neoadjuvant radiotherapy and re-radiotherapy for esophageal cancer. The efficacy is equivalent to or better than that of photon radiotherapy, and proton radiotherapy is superior than photon radiotherapy in security. The combination of proton radiotherapy and immunotherapy, the increase of radiotherapy dose, and large-scale randomized controlled studies based on intensity-modulated proton radiotherapy technology will be hot topics for further research.

Key words: Esophageal neoplasms, Radiotherapy, Proton therapy