This Thanksgiving ended with a major celebration. A celebration of life and a celebration of being cancer free after a long five year battle. Your family and friends were there. It was one of the most wonderful days in your memory. When you look back at the long days in the hospital and the long days receiving cancer proton therapy and getting through those side effects. It was a struggle, but you were victorious. It was exhausting, but you are full of energy now.

Making the decision to start cancer proton therapy or the decision to begin discussing treatment options for prostate cancer can be a challenge, but when you get the results that you and your doctors hoped for, the celebrations are easy.

As more and more hospitals continue to look for non-invasive cancer treatment option, an increasing number of patients are finding that proton beam radiation or other kinds of proton radiation therapy is the best option. When you are facing a difficult diagnosis it is important to make sure that you find the best resources for treatment and that you take the time to figure out what all of your available options are.

Consider some of these facts and figures about the the latest cancer treatments that are available:

• Conventional radiation continues beyond the tumor, but proton therapy is a type of radiation that stops at a very specific point in the targeted tissue. In breast cancer, for instance, this means on average no radiation to the heart and on average 50% less radiation will reach the lung as compared with conventional radiation options.
• When compared to X-rays, proton therapy decreases the radiation dose to gastrointestinal structures by at least 59%.
• There were more than 30 particle therapy centers as of the beginning of 2015. This makes for a total of about 80 treatment rooms that were under construction worldwide.
• A radiation therapy treatment session generally takes 15 to 45 minutes. The actual time spent delivering the protons to the tumor, however, is generally only about a minute or two.
• Studies have found that prostate cancer patients treated using this method have a significantly reduced risk of impotence because of proton therapy?s targeted approach. As a result, 94% of men report that they remain sexually active after treatment.

If you have something special to celebrate this holiday season, make sure that you invite all of your friends and family. Maybe even the doctor!