There are many key trends coming out of the 2018 ASTRO Annual Meeting. According to Victor Mangona of Texas Center for Proton Therapy, one in particular may even change the way we treat cancer.
Here’s what he has to say: “Historically, patients with metastatic disease were all lumped into one category of patients – treated as ‘incurable’ with no benefit from treating metastatic sites if the disease had already spread. Now, radiation therapy to oligometastatic sites in conjunction with systemic therapy may improve clinical outcomes and potentially increase survival for these patients.
This is great evidence that if the metastases are very few, being more aggressive and treating these sites up front actually has a significant benefit. Proton therapy is uniquely suited for this type of treatment due to its ability to deliver radiation precisely to the targeted tumor but minimizing exposure to surrounding normal tissues.”