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Homepage – Forum Forums Research, Clinical Trials, and New Treatments Proton Beam For Stage 2 (Muscle Invasive)

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    LemonsFixCancer
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    A 40 foot diameter expensive cyclotron creates a proton beam. Modern methods use a CAT-scan during the beaming to allow the doctor to direct the beam to the cancer (hidden in the muscle wall).

    My doctor worried that CAT-scans (which are X-ray scans) would put too much X-ray radiation in the patient if they produced a continuous video of the region (at least hundreds of scans per second). But, modern CAT-scan X-rays use very little energy, so the X-rays won’t do much harm.

    My doctor worried that CAT-scans would not be able to process images real-time. He said that bladders move during surgery and the beam has to precisely hit the target, which would be impossible if images take time to process. Apparently, modern electronics is fast enough to process images real time.

    So, expensive processes like CAT-scans that guide proton beams during surgery are possible to fight muscle invasive (stage 2) bladder cancer.

    The proton beam has such high energy that it shoots through flesh without much interaction. The flesh slows the protons. When the protons slow down enough, they interact with flesh and impart most of their energy (like a bomb that penetrates the surface flesh, but detonates when it reaches a certain depth). This is called the Bragg Peak (the peak of energy as protons slow down).

    Bomb depth (Bragg Peak depth) can be adjusted by adjusting the energy of the proton beam (how fast they come in). Destructive power can be adjusted by adjusting the duration of the beam and intensity of the beam (more protons per second).

    Alpha particles (which are Helium nucleii–that is, two protons and two neutrons) cause much more damage to surrounding tissues, and don’t have the Bragg Peak of protons. This is why protons are used instead of Alpha particles (which hit the surface flesh more than underlying flesh).

    Proton beams are applied to the outside of the belly by the bladder. To reiterate: They penetrate the flesh without much damage until they reach the target, then explode like bombs (Bragg Peak).

    Images (whether CAT-scan or other images) can be enhanced by adding dither. Dither is random noise that is added to a signal to reduce the random noise in the image. Random noise added to random noise cancels much of the noise (when one goes up, the other might be going down). It is too technical to explain, but the Probability Density Function (PDF) of the two noises convolve (a mathematical concept) to diminish total noise without affecting the original signal at all.

    The purpose of using proton beams is to kill cancer cells that have invaded the bladder wall without harming surrounding tissue. This is in lieu of neobladder surgery. (A neobladder is an artificial bladder that is made to replace all or part of the original bladder, and made of a segment of small or large intestine). Large intestines are responsible for much of the digestive process, so you don’t want to cut out too much large intestine.

    Neobladder patients usually sense pressure of pee in their neobladder (to tell them when to pee), or, more commonly, use a timer to tell them to pee on a regular interval (because bladder nerves have been severed, so they will never have urgency to urinate). On the internet, you can find a $400 belt invention that has a sensor to tell you when your bladder is about to get full (to tell you when to urinate).

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