Advances and Challenges in Charged Particle Therapy: Protons and Beyond
A special issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694). This special issue belongs to the section "Methods and Technologies Development".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 29 October 2026 | Viewed by 126
Special Issue Editor
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
Interests: charged particle therapy; artificial intelligence; cancer diagnosis; cancer outcomes; carcinoma adenoid cystic; imaging; machine learning; oropharyngeal neoplasms; paranasal sinus neoplasms; proton beam therapy; radiopharmaceutical therapy; radiotherapy intensity-modulated; skull base neoplasms
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Charged particle therapy, particularly proton therapy, is increasingly utilized in modern radiation oncology. Its favorable dose distribution offers the potential to improve tumor control while reducing radiation exposure to surrounding healthy tissues and thereby limiting treatment-related toxicity. Clinical studies, however, have not consistently demonstrated benefit across cancer types. Biological and physical uncertainties inherent to proton beams, including range uncertainty and relative biological effectiveness (RBE) variability, compounded by the diversity of delivery systems, differences in beam profiles, treatment planning software, and institutional experience, complicate the interpretation of clinical outcomes. The absence of standardized trial designs and the over-reliance on subjective quality-of-life instruments for toxicity reporting further render conclusions about the clinical benefit of proton therapy inconclusive. Meanwhile, other charged particle modalities, including carbon and helium ion therapy, are emerging as promising alternatives, offering intrinsically sharper dose fall-off and enhanced RBE compared to protons.
This Special Issue aims to highlight recent progress in charged particle therapy, with a particular focus on elucidating the benefits and limitations of proton therapy while broadening the therapeutic horizon to include carbon and helium ions. We welcome original research articles, reviews, and perspective pieces. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: proton therapy, heavy-ion and hybrid heavy-ion therapy, adaptive and image-guided particle therapy, treatment planning and optimization, facility design and construction, physics concepts, pre-clinical studies, and clinical outcome research in oncology.
Dr. Annie W. Chan
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- proton therapy
- carbon ion therapy
- helium ion therapy
- charged particle therapy
- relative biological effectiveness
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