Comparison Features for Proton and Heavy Ion Beams versus Photon and Electron Beams

Radiotherapy currently uses ionizing radiations to destroy DNA of the cancer cells. These cells lose their capacities to reproduce, leading to cellular death and the tumors destruction. The increased incidence of cancer, easier access to new technologies and the failure of chemotherapy to provide a long-term local control, leads to the necessity to find new technologies to treat this disease. Because in the radiotherapy with photon beams, the large dose out of the adjacent target tissues is a considerable inconvenient, the latest research technologies in the radiotherapy treatment are developed for the use of proton and heavy ion beams. Using the dosimetric measurements, this paper presents the main characteristics of photon and electron beams used in radiotherapy today in Romania. These characteristics are determined using a specialized software program called Mephysto. By comparison, using the same software program, there are presented outstanding features of the depth dose distribution for simulated proton beam, with the energy equal to 225 MeV. The obtained results could be used in future in Romania, both in clinical dosimetry, for analyzing the proton beams and in research centers for the development of new treatment techniques.