Automated proton planning reproduced clinical head and neck NTCP estimates within minutes
Automated proton plans reproduced clinical dysphagia and xerostomia estimates closely while reducing optimization time from days to about one hour.
Tag
Protons
Ultra-high dose-rate proton DNA damage changed with scavenger concentration and dose
Ultra-high dose-rate protons produced fewer DNA breaks at low scavenger concentration, but the effect diminished or reversed under other experimental conditions.
Local control was similar across proton, photon and stereotactic radiotherapy for grade 1 meningioma
Five-year local control exceeded 89% across proton, photon and stereotactic approaches, with no significant modality effect in meta-regression.
Heart dose rises during esophageal IMPT but adaptive replanning limits the increase
Mean heart dose increased during esophageal IMPT, while heart-dose–triggered replanning reduced the excess dose in patients requiring adaptation.
Most European proton candidates still face critical access shortages
More than 56,000 theoretically eligible European patients lived in areas with no proton access or critical capacity shortages in 2025.
Deep learning reduced pediatric craniospinal target contouring from eight hours to 30 minutes
Automated pediatric CSI contours achieved a mean Dice score of 0.959 and reduced target-delineation time from approximately eight hours to 30 minutes.
Patient-informed design supported rapid and representative COMPPARE trial accrual
COMPPARE enrolled 2,524 patients from 51 institutions in 52 months, with Black participation reaching 16% of the cohort.
Online proton adaptation improved dosimetry but required about one hour per fraction
Adaptation would have improved organ sparing or target coverage in 46% of fractions, with a median workflow time of 61.9 minutes.
TLD-100 response varied systematically with synchrotron proton dose rate
TLD-100 over-responded below 7 Gy/s and under-responded above 300 Gy/s, despite remaining dose-independent from 3 to 18 Gy.
Protons produced greater subclinical lung changes after breast nodal irradiation
Proton therapy produced greater CT-detected lung changes than photons despite lower lung dose and no increase in clinical pulmonary toxicity.
High-dose chemotherapy was linked to radiographic brain injury after proton therapy for medulloblastoma
Radiographic brain injury occurred in 16% of children, all asymptomatic; every affected patient had received high-dose chemotherapy.
Dose-guided positioning optimized proton target coverage within three minutes
Automated dose-guided positioning matched anatomical alignment overall and improved primary target coverage by 1.0% when the clinical goal was initially missed.
FLASH proton therapy for lung cancer remains preclinical despite technical progress
Preclinical lung studies support normal-tissue sparing, but uncertain biological thresholds, dose conformity, and respiratory motion still prevent clinical implementation.
Protons reduced spinal cord and bowel dose in single-fraction spine SBRT plans
Proton plans preserved 20-Gy target coverage while reducing spinal cord, oesophageal, lung, and bowel dose compared with photon VMAT.
Combined dose–LET model predicted temporal lobe necrosis after skull-base proton therapy
Temporal lobe volumes receiving high dose or moderate dose with high LET jointly predicted grade 2 or higher necrosis.