Physical, Biological, Clinical, and Methodological Advances in Particle Therapy

About this Research Topic

Background

Particle therapy is an advanced external beam radiotherapy that irradiates tumors with accelerated ions (protons or heavy ions). The Bragg peak of ions in physical dose distributions enables precise targeting of tumors, while maximumly protecting adjacent normal tissues. Moreover, the enhanced biological effects of heavy ions are superior to those of photons and protons in sterilizing hypoxic and radio-resistant tumor cells. Compared with even the most advanced radiation techniques in photon therapy, preliminary clinical trials of particle therapy have yielded more promising outcomes in local control, overall survival, and toxicity for head and neck cancers, chordomas and chondrosarcomas, prostate carcinoma, etc. Patients would be benefited from particle therapy for its highly effective and non-invasive nature. As a result, particle therapy is attracting increasing attention from the oncology community worldwide.

Despite the aforementioned advantages of particle therapy, a comprehensive understanding of its underlying physics and radiobiology, as well as enough clinical data with high quality are still lacking. In this Research Topic, we aim to focus on recent advances in physical, biological, and clinical aspects of particle therapy. Advanced innovations and techniques in the whole workflow of particle therapy, such as image registration, target delineation, treatment planning, quality assurance, and beam delivery, will be covered. Studies of clinical outcomes and toxicities of particle therapy in various cancers are also included.
Due to the nature of the Bragg peak, dose delivery in particle therapy needs to be more accurate than that in photon therapy, in particular between fractions. To achieve this, the best solution is to realize adaptive therapy for protons and heavy ions. Advanced image processing techniques, such as image registration and target delineation, before treatment planning or re-planning, are of vital importance. Therefore, studies investigating the critical steps involved in adaptive particle therapy are also being considered.
In addition, other relevant exploratory studies such as helium/oxygen ion therapy, FLASH, and the combination of photon and particle therapy, will also be also included in this topic.

Toward the above goals, our Research Topic welcomes coordinated efforts in original research, review articles, meta-analyses, and other relevant articles from academia, industry, and hospitals. Manuscripts involving multidisciplinary collaboration are also welcomed. The topic includes but is not limited to:
• Facility design of proton and heavy ion accelerators;
• Multimodality image registration (CT-PET, CT-MRI, CT-CBCT, etc.) and target delineation
• Novel approaches in the estimations of stopping power ratio and elemental composition from patient CT, PET, or other images;
• Modeling of physical and biological dose calculations in particle therapy;
• Simulation and experimental studies of radiobiological effects of heavy ions;
• Beam delivery, commissioning, and quality assurance of particle therapy;
• Clinical outcomes and toxicities of particle therapy for various cancers;
• Techniques for adaptive proton or heavy ion therapy;
• Applications of machine learning techniques in particle therapy;
• Other exploratory studies include helium/oxygen ion therapy, FLASH, and the combination of photon and particle therapy.

Keywords: particle therapy, dosimetry, commissioning, quality assurance, treatment planning, clinical outcomes, adaptive therapy, radiobiology, image processing

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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