Report about the cancer treatment in Japan: proton beam therapy for liver oligometastasis in breast cancer patients

A paper published in 2024 on PBT treatment performed in Japan. This treatment was performed on patients diagnosed with hepatic oligometastatic recurrence after the primary cancer had been controlled. It is discussed in the paper that whether PBT treatment (with precedent chemotherapy and/or hormone therapy as systemic therapy for liver metastatic recurrence before PBT) is effective in the cases that resection is not possible due to underlying disease or general condition.

With a cautionary note that there is still a room to reinvestigate due to a limited number of cases and relatively short-period of observation of this study, the report argued the followings:

• A large size of the cancer is possible to be treated by PBT. The study included the cases of tumors larger than 5 cm, and the largest tumor was 13 cm. PBT can be used to treat significantly larger tumors without severe adverse effects*

• a satisfactory LC rate for liver oligometastasis of breast cancer patients. Low incidence of adverse events (AEs) and the high LC rate was observed where PBT appears to be a feasible option when local treatment is necessary for liver oligometastasis in breast cancer patients.

• further investigation into the effectiveness of PBT compared to chemotherapy alone will be continued to see if PBT is possible to be as an alternative treatment method instead of chemotherapy

As can be seen from this report, research into the effectiveness of cancer treatments is also progressing in Japan.

*about the size, please refer the blog summarized this point :

applicable size of a cancer

(This blog was created based on the following paper: https://academic.oup.com/jrr/article/65/2/231/7601773?login=false)