A study on brain tumor reported that a new therapy, proton radiotherapy, could be an effective way to treat the tumor in children as it has fewer long-term side effects.

Not many people in the United States, or across the globe, have access to proton radiotherapy, but it is capable of providing help in the pediatric population, said Torunn Yock, an author of the new study and a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital. The kind of therapy is increasingly known for its abilities to reduce the side effects of treatment, she added.

There are some experienced health centers around world which have success record of the proton therapy. These records show the therapy is safe and effective, Yock continued.

As per study authors, “In photon radiotherapy, dose of radiation is delivered all along X-ray beam as it passes through patient's body. But in proton therapy, the radiation dose is focused on the target area. This means little or no radiation reaches healthy tissue in front or behind the tumor”.

For the study, the authors examined 59 children, aged 3 to 21, with medulloblastoma, the most common type of pediatric malignant primary brain tumor. All of the participants were given proton radiotherapy at Mass General in Boston between 2003 and 2009. As per the authors, the participants had chemotherapy and they also had undergone a surgery to remove tumor.

Of all the patients, 12 died during the study, while died due to traumatic brain injury, as per the authors. The proton therapy’s effects on thinking ability on patients were less severe than photon radiotherapy, as per the study authors. The study published in The Lancet Oncology showed that hormone level deficits were observed in 63% patients after seven years of treatment.