Overview of Carbon-ion Radiotherapy

The outcome of radiotherapy depends on potential efficiency of accelerators and their related accessories. In charged particle therapy before the 1990s, accelerators that were primarily installed for physics research had been shared, which however had limited flexibility for clinical use. Therapy-dedicated facility was first constructed at Loma Linda University for PBT in 1990 and at NIRS for CIRT in 1993. Currently, there are more than 56 facilities for PBT, 6 for CIRT, and 6 for PBT/CIRT, and even more facilities are under construction or active planning. CIRT has beneficial property for cancer therapy because, as compared with photon therapy, it offers superior dose distributions by exhibiting a Bragg peak in the body and, as compared with PBT, it has higher radiobiological effectiveness. The number of potential candidates for charged particle therapy is estimated to range from 0.018% to 0.035% of all irradiated cancer patients. In CIRT at NIRS, Japan, more than 9,000 patients have been treated with promising results in non-SCC tumors and photon-resistant types of tumors at various sites. It is of note that in CIRT a significant reduction in overall treatment time and fractions has been successfully achieved.