gms | German Medical Science

The increasing number of patients surviving proton and carbon radiotherapy warrants a comprehensive investigation of late sequelae from particle radiotherapies. Documentation of these effects will aid evaluation of current radiotherapy protocols as well as elucidate potential countermeasures to minimize adverse effects. Since clinical follow up studies are currently limited, it is important to assess what is known about particle effects in laboratory models used to estimate the risk of late radiation effects in space travel. This presentation will briefly review the pertinent clinical and radiobiological literature relevant to this topic, as well as the status of a new clinical initiative to investigate late effects on charged particle radiotherapy patients treated in Berkeley in the 1970’s to 1990’s.

This work was supported by NASA Grant #NNJ07HC791 and the Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California, San Francisco.