Alternative cancer treatments
Since the 1940s, medical science has developed chemotherapy, radiation therapy, adjuvant therapy and the newer targeted therapies, as well as refined surgical techniques for removing cancer. Before the development of these modern, evidence-based treatments, 90% of cancer patients died within five years. With modern mainstream treatments, only 34% of cancer patients die within five years. However, while mainstream forms of cancer treatment generally prolong life or permanently cure cancer, most treatments also have side effects ranging from unpleasant to fatal, such as pain, blood clots, fatigue, and infection. These side effects and the lack of a guarantee that treatment will be successful create appeal for alternative treatments for cancer, which purport to cause fewer side effects or to increase survival rates despite evidence to suggest a 2–5 fold increase in death with alternative medicines.
Particle therapy
Carbon ion therapy (CIRT) uses particles more massive than protons or neutrons. Carbon-ion radiotherapy has increasingly garnered scientific attention as technological delivery options have improved and clinical studies have demonstrated its treatment advantages for many cancers such as prostate, head and neck, lung, and liver cancers, bone and soft tissue sarcomas, locally recurrent rectal cancer, and pancreatic cancer, including locally advanced disease. It also has clear advantages to treat otherwise intractable hypoxic and radio-resistant cancers while opening the door for substantially hypo-fractionated treatment of normal and radio-sensitive disease.