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Review
. 2021 Apr 28;5(2):113-120.
doi: 10.23922/jarc.2020-082. eCollection 2021.

Carbon-ion Radiotherapy for Colorectal Cancer

Affiliations
Review

Carbon-ion Radiotherapy for Colorectal Cancer

Shigeru Yamada et al. J Anus Rectum Colon. .

Abstract

Heavy-ion radiotherapy (RT) is a kind of particle RT, and carbon-ion beam constitutes the primary delivery method of heavy-ion RT. Unlike the conventional photon modalities, particle RT, in particular carbon-ion radiotherapy (CIRT), offers unique physical and biological advantages. Particle therapy allows for substantial dose delivery to tumors with minimal surrounding tissue damage. In addition, CIRT in particular possesses biological advantages such as inducing increased double-strand breaks in DNA structures, causing irreversible cell damage independently of cell cycle or oxygenation, more so than proton or photon. It can be expected that CIRT is effective on radioresistant cancers such as colorectal cancers (CRCs). We introduced the results of CIRT for local recurrent rectal cancer, lung metastasis, liver metastasis, and lymph node metastasis.

Keywords: carbon-ion radiotherapy (CIRT); colorectal cancer; liver metastasis; lung metastasis; lymph node metastasis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest There are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Depth dose distribution of various ion beams.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Locally recurrent rectal cancer 3 years after resection (70-year-old female). (A) Computed tomography (CT) scan before CIRT. (B) CT scan 2 years after CIRT. (C) Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) before CIRT. (D) MRI scan 2 years after CIRT demonstrated disappearance of the mass.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Liver metastasis 3 years after sigmoid colon cancer resection (61 years old). (A) Computed tomography (CT) scan before CIRT. (B) CT scan 2 years after CIRT. (C) Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging before CIRT. (D) PET scan at years after CIRT demonstrated disappearance of the mass.

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