Don’t miss the Keynote Speech by Mr Feroz AGAD – Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of SAH Global & SAH Care – on November 13th in Dubai on the role of Proton Therapy in the Global Cancer Care System.

Bristol – November 7, 2018. We are pleased to announce a partnership between SAH Global (“SAH”) and Lacort Medical (“Lacort”), to bring Comprehensive Oncology, including Proton Beam Cancer Therapy (“PBT”) and other medical treatments, training & education to Latin America (“LatAm”). According to the World Health Organization, cancer is the second leading cause of death in Latin America, behind cardiovascular diseases.

“Based on radiation dose profiles, we have always anticipated that children with brain tumors would derive cognitive benefits of proton therapy relative to conventional X-ray therapy,” commented senior author Vinai Gondi, MD, director of Research & Education at the Northwestern Medicine Chicago Proton Center. “This study provides our first and most compelling clinical evidence of the importance of using proton therapy to spare as much normal brain tissue as possible.”

During the event, you can hear stories from former patients, learn more about proton therapy, and tour the facility. This complimentary seminar, led by a HUPTI radiation oncologist, is open to prospective patients or anyone wanting to learn more about proton therapy.

The 10th UAE Cancer Congress has been a great event. SAH has been honored to have received His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Cabinet Minister, Minister of Tolerance in the UAE and President of the UAE Genetics Association, and Dr. ShaheenahDawood, Head of MedicalOncology and Head of the BreastCancer Program at Dubai Hospital in the United Arab Emirates.

Meet our  team based in Dubai Healthcare City, your NEIGHBORHOOD HEALTHCARE PARTNER, to discussProton Therapy and Advanced Cancer Treatments.

www.sahintego.com

Email : [email protected]

Tel: +971 (0)4 455 1004

Many patients are increasingly aware of the multitude of options and technologies available for the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer, thanks to the ease of finding information on the internet. However, the amount of information that is available is overwhelming and there is a need for objective, expert guidance to determine which paradigm best suits each patient, depending upon their individual circumstances. In many cases, insurance coverage dictates what the patient is able to consider, irrespective of the patient’s preference.

Too often, when men consult a practitioner offering surgery, they are encouraged to have surgical intervention without being counseled about the potential for significant quality of life issues that may ensue such as impotence and urinary and bowel incontinence. The patient is often told that a prostatectomy is the “Gold Standard” and they don’t hear about other options. Sometimes, the patients just want to “get it out” and don’t realize that there’s a significant potential that there could be a recurrence within several years.

Conversely, patients who confer with a radiation oncologist may not be made aware of the possibility of rectal toxicity. Practitioners who offer only photon IMRT may not make the patient aware of proton therapy or brachytherapy, or the possibility of combining these modalities.

The Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute (HUPTI) will devote a special “Live your Life” seminar to Breast Cancer Awareness Month on Thursday, October 11th at 6:30 p.m. at their institute.

During the event, you can hear stories from former patients, learn more about proton therapy, and tour the facility. This complimentary seminar, led by a HUPTI radiation oncologist, is open to prospective patients or anyone wanting to learn more about proton therapy.

FDA-approved proton therapy has been used to treat cancer since 1990. The treatment differs from other radiation therapies by delivering a precise dose of energy to the targeted area. When compared to other cancer treatment options, proton therapy often results in fewer side effects and less damage to the surrounding healthy breast tissue and organs, while also limiting cosmetic damage, skin necrosis, and rib fracture.

Particle therapy (high-dose protons or carbon ions) provide a better local control, survival and allow lower doses to be given to normal tissues and should, therefore, be considered the treatment of choice in some cases.

(…)Proton therapy offers an alternative method of RT for patients for whom photon-based EBRT is suboptimal. Although IMRT is a highly conformal radiation technique, low to intermediate doses to surrounding nontarget organs is unavoidable. In contrast to photon-based EBRT, proton therapy deposits most of the radiation energy within the target area rather than the surrounding healthy tissues outside the target volume. Proton therapy is preferable for patients with recurrent tumors in previously irradiated areas and tumors near radiation-sensitive structures because of its physical properties, which allow for a sharp drop-off in dose in the surrounding healthy tissues, including radiosensitive OARs

(…)proton palliative RT can benefit those who cannot receive photon-based palliative RT because of tumor location or prior local radiation, and it provides benefit to patients who have had previous radiation through decreased cumulative dose to sensitive surrounding tissue [14]. The proton quad shot regimen offers an alternative option for symptom palliation for patients not amenable to palliative photon RT.

(…)proton therapy offers the unique advantage of delivering a negligible radiation dose to healthy tissues behind the target volume.

Don’t miss the Keynote Speech By Feroz Agad, Founder & Chairman of SAH Global – Proton Therapy Cancer Treatment, USA at 3rd World Conference on Breast and Cervical Cancer the one in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

It has finally been decided to establish proton therapy as a national treatment option in Norway, and there will be centres in Oslo and Bergen from 2023. The majority of children and young adults who are to receive curative radiation therapy should be treated with proton therapy.

Particle therapy is used as a collective term for radiation therapy using heavy ions. In general, regular radiation therapy in Norway currently consists of photon therapy (high-voltage x-ray radiotherapy). The ion that is most commonly used in particle therapy is the proton, and of around 175 000 patients treated worldwide at the end of 2016, 150 000 were treated with proton therapy (1). The other ion in use today is the carbon ion, and globally a little more than 20 000 patients have received carbon ion therapy.

Although heavy ions have been used to a limited extent for therapeutic purposes since the 1950s, only in the last 20 years has this really become an intrinsic part of the cancer treatment programme. The number of patients treated has increased by a factor of almost ten in this period. The main advantage of proton and carbon ions in radiation therapy, compared with photons, is that the physical properties of the ions allow for a better radiation dose distribution for most tumours, so that they cause damage to the tumour rather than to normal tissue. This does not necessarily result in a higher cure rate, but in the adverse effects of radiation therapy (late effects) being less pronounced than is the case for current, regular photon therapy. This results in considerably improved quality of life for patients who live for many years after cancer treatment. A number of adverse effects may manifest themselves up to 15–20 years after radiation therapy, and therefore young patients, patients with a long life expectancy, and patient groups with major adverse radiation-related effects may derive most benefit from proton therapy.

The benefits of proton therapy

Throughout the years of assessments in Norway, a great deal of discussion has taken place regarding the extent of the need for proton therapy, as well as the ethical aspects of the treatment (6–9).

The prevailing opinion based on our current knowledge is that the majority of children who are to receive radiation therapy with curative intent should be given proton therapy (6). It is known that reduced radiation to normal tissue reduces the risk of late effects and secondary cancer, and it is therefore highly probable that proton therapy is particularly advantageous for children (8). However, no randomised trials have been undertaken on children, as this is viewed as ethically problematic.

For adults the picture is more complex. Generally young adults with tumours in or near the central nervous system should be prioritised for the same reason as children. Chordomas, chondrosarcomas and ocular tumours that need external radiation therapy are considered to be relatively well-established indications for particle therapy (9, 10). In the case of sinonasal cancer, a number of studies have been undertaken that compared patient cohorts that have undergone particle and photon therapy. These studies have been included in a meta-analysis which concludes that particle therapy is beneficial for this diagnosis (11).

“The study identifies an area of cognition that is inadvertently impacted by standard treatment methods, which has real consequences for the quality of life of the survivors. The physicians’ ultimate goal is to allow their patients to survive and to live as well as possible,” Sekeres said. “Although these treatments are often crucial in the effective management of the cancer, if the physicians and the family know there are these unintended side effects, that may be an additional factor to consider when exploring the treatment options.”

A small amount of lung tissue is irradiated when treating the breast, but the proportion of the total lung capacity is inconsequential – 2–3% at most.

The heart is another story. There is no radiation dose considered completely safe for the heart.

With modern treatment techniques, most Radiation Oncologists try to keep the mean dose below 2 Gy*. But 20 year F/U data on patients treated for left sided breast cancer shows a 7% increase in the likelihood of having a significant cardiac event (myocardial infarction, the development of cardiomyopathy, symptomatic coronary vascular disease, etc.) for every Gy mean heart dose given.

We can usually limit the heart dose to < 1–2 Gy for left sided breast cancer patients with standard x-ray radiation therapy techniques. Sometimes that includes having the patient hold their breath while the machine is treating, to bring the chest wall away from the heart. These techniques usually work unless we have to treat the lymph nodes, for more advanced cancers – especially the internal mammary lymph nodes, which lie immediately in front of the heart.

The only way to accomplish that is with Proton Beam Irradiation – which allows us to treat the breast and all the draining lymph nodes with essentially ZERO dose to the heart.

(…) trial has given solid evidence of the benefits of radiation treatment of the Internal Mammary – Medial Supraclavicular lymph nodes (…)

Children with brain tumors who receive conventional photon radiation therapy are at risk for experiencing cognitive changes after treatment. That’s because the radiation not only treats the tumor but it can also impact the healthy tissue surrounding it.

With proton beam radiation therapy, research suggests that these cognitive changes will be less severe. This technology allows radiation oncologists to more precisely apply radiation dose to the tumor so the child’s healthy brain tissue is not exposed to as much radiation and can continue growing and developing.