Particle therapy in prostate cancer: a review

While dose escalation is proving important to achieve satisfactory long-term outcomes in prostate cancer, the optimal radiation modality to deliver the treatment is still a topic of debate. Charged particle beams can offer improved dose distributions to the target volume as compared to conventional 3D-conformal radiotherapy, with better sparing of surrounding healthy tissues. Exquisite dose distributions, with the fulfillment of dose-volume constraints to normal tissues, however, can also be achieved with photon-based intensity-modulated techniques. This review summarizes the literature on the use of particle therapy in prostate cancer and attempts to put in perspective its relative merits compared to current photon-based radiotherapy.