Particle therapy can save 30% more of a patient's immune cells during cancer treatment than standard radiation.
Radiation therapy often kills the very immune cells that the body needs to fight off the cancer. A new mathematical model proves that switching from photon therapy to particle therapy significantly reduces this collateral damage. By preserving more of the immune system, patients have a much better chance of surviving and avoiding secondary infections. The model allows doctors to calculate exactly how much an individual person will benefit from one treatment over another. This makes it possible to justify the use of more expensive therapies based on hard data about patient survival.
Model-aided quantification of patient-specific benefit in mitigating radiation induced lymphopenia by particle therapy of cancer
arXiv · 2605.00144
Treatment-related lymphopenia is a frequent and clinically significant consequence of cancer therapy that can compromise immune-mediated tumor control and worsen patient outcomes. Despite its importance, no mechanistic framework exists to accurately predict the severity of lymphopenia from patient-specific data. Here, we present a biokinetic model that quantitatively describes lymphocyte depletion and recovery during and after radiotherapy, integrating radiation dose-volume distributions, blood