Current Results of Proton Beam Irradiation of Uveal Melanomas

DNA Cell Cycle Studies In Uveal Melanoma

“…After successful radiation of uveal melanomas with either cobalt plaques or chargedparticle beams, the mean tumor shrinkage is approximately 40%; only 10% of tumors are reduced to a flat scar. 5,16,18,21,22 Occasionally, uveal melanoma necrosis has been reported after treatment despite little or no clinical or ultrasonographic evidence of radiation response. 23 In a number ofhuman and animal malignancies, apparently viable tumor cells remain after radiation sterilization of the neoplasm.24 Most uveal melanomas studied after brachytherapy or charged-particle irradiation have little or no histologic evidence of mitotic activity.…”

Proton beam therapy for iris melanomas

“…Several cases of iris lesions treated by proton beam therapy have been mentioned in series presenting the results of treatment for uveal melanoma, but these studies do not detail the local outcome of this subset of melanomas and their course after treatment is therefore not analysable. 8,19,20 The results of this short series of patients are very encouraging, as patient survival was excellent with only one patient with suspected metastatic melanoma. Iris melanomas are known to have a slow course with a lowmetastatic rate 2 estimated to be 3% at 5 years and 5% at 10 years but this series presents relatively bigger sized lesions (median diameter and thickness comparable to our series but the range is wider and they include patients with extrascelaral invasion) than the ones we describe, all patients treated in our centre presented small, circumscribed lesions with no extrascleral extension.…”

Late effects from hadron therapy

“…The LGN is a structure with well-defined anatomical boundaries, and well-described afferent, efferent, and receptive field The treatment of human lesions with protons or helium ions was pioneered in Berkeley, Uppsala, Sweden, Harvard and in the former Soviet Union (see review in [89,90]). There is an impressive literature in particular with regard to treatment of chordoma/chondrosarcoma [12,21,22,32,80,84,92,95,105,107], meningiomas [59,114] and choroidal melanoma [24,28,29,34,48,89,92]. Combinations of photons with a proton boost have been shown to offer an exceptional chance of cure at the price of an acceptable toxicity [83].…”