Evidence Hub

A systematic review of antiproton radiotherapy

M. Bittner, A. Grosu, N. Wiedenmann, J. Wilkens

Front. Physics, 2014

6 citations

Abstract

Antiprotons have been proposed as possible particles for radiotherapy; over the past years, the renewed interest in the potential biomedical relevance led to an increased research activity. It is the aim of this review to deliver a comprehensive overview regarding the evidence accumulated so far, analysing the background and depicting the current status of antiprotons in radiotherapy. A literature search has been conducted, including major scientific and commercial databases. All articles and a number of relevant conference abstracts published in the respective field have been included in this systematic review. The physical basis of antiproton radiotherapy is complex; however, the characterisation of the energy deposition profile supports its potential use in radiotherapy. Also the dosimetry improved considerably over the past few years. Regarding the biological properties, data on the effects on cells are presented; however, definite conclusions regarding the relative biological effectiveness cannot be made at the moment and radiobiological evidence of enhanced effectiveness remains scarce. In addition, there is new evidence supporting the potential imaging properties, for example for online dose verification. Clinical settings which might profit from the use of antiprotons have been further tracked. Judging from the evidence available so far, clinical constellations requiring optimal sparing in the entrance region of the beam and re-irradiations might profit most from…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a systematic review. Its evidence level is 1 of 5 (Highest · pooled evidence). Pooled evidence from several studies sits at the top of the evidence pyramid.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free