Technology Developments in Proton Therapy

Proton therapy is a radiation cancer therapy modality that aims to irradiate tumors with submillimeter precision. It is achieved by utilizing the unique properties of protons traversing the human body – they deposit most of the energy at the end of their penetration range so that the dose is well localized in depth and with a small lateral spread. This allows optimal tumor control to be achieved while sparing surrounding healthy tissues, including organs at risk (OARs). In particular, proton therapy is the treatment of choice for pediatric cancers due to their long life expectancy and thus prioritizing healthy tissue sparing.

The unique clinical benefits of proton therapy can be better exploited owing to advances in physics, biology, and technology. The latter is not only important to safely deliver treatments but also to enable novel approaches that will improve patient outcomes. Moreover, technological advances are necessary to improve the worldwide availability of proton therapy, which is still limited. By reducing its cost and making facilities more compact, proton therapy can finally reach underserved areas. Therefore, we dedicate this special issue to current technological developments in proton therapy that will potentially influence the field in the next years.

We welcome the submission of Original Research and Review articles, focusing on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Technological advances in dose delivery
• Beam delivery and monitoring improvements
• Innovative concepts of proton accelerators
• Technology for image-guided proton therapy
• Proton radiography and proton CT
• Novel QA devices
• Cost optimization


Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.

Keywords: proton therapy, technology development, dose delivery, proton accelerators, image guidance

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.