Why choose proton therapy over any of the others? Proton therapy is not the right choice for everyone, for a lot of reasons, but for me it quickly became the only choice after I found out about it and did some further research.
The primary drawback to proton therapy is that a person must be willing to wait to get it. The availability is severely limited at present because there are only five centers available in the US. Many people can't stand the thought of waiting a month or two with cancer growing inside them and I can surely understand that. For them, one of the other options would be better.
Other drawbacks, it is extremely expensive (most insurance does cover it to some extent), and the centers are spread across the country. If you aren't lucky enough to be in a town that has one, you'll be traveling, be away from family and friends for two months, and have the additional expense of finding somewhere to live for those months.
On the plus side, proton therapy is extremely precise. For prostate cancer it has at least an equal cure rate as, "The Gold Standard", which is radical prostatectomy, standard or robotic. The kicker is that it has almost no incidence of side effects. The primary side effects that can be experienced in any of the treatments for prostate cancer are incontinence and impotence, either of which can have a marked impact on a guy's quality of life.
The next post will explain, as best I can, why proton therapy can be so much more precise than conventional radiation.
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