  In oncology, treating cancer with a beam of photons is a well established
therapeutic technique, developed over 100 years, and today over 50% of cancer
patients will undergo traditional X-ray radiotherapy. However, ionizing
radiation therapy is not the only option, as the high-energy photons delivering
their cell-killing radiation energy into cancerous tumor can lead to
significant damage to healthy tissues surrounding the tumor, located throughout
the beam's path. Therefore, in nowadays, advances in ionizing radiation therapy
are competitive to non-ionizing ones, as for example the laser light based
therapy, resulting in a synergism that has revolutionized medicine. The use of
non-invasive or minimally invasive (e.g. through flexible endoscopes)
therapeutic procedures in the management of patients represents a very
interesting treatment option. Moreover, as the major breakthrough in cancer
management is the individualized patient treatment, new biophotonic techniques,
e.g. photo-activated drug carriers, help the improvement of treatment efficacy
and/or normal tissue toxicity. Additionally, recent studies support that laser
technology progresses could revolutionize cancer proton therapy, by reducing
the cost of the needed installations. The aim of this review is to present some
laser-based future objectives for cancer radiation therapy, aiming to address
the relevant advances in the ionizing and non-ionizing radiation therapy, i.e.
protons and heavy ions therapy, as well as photodynamic targeted and molecular
therapies.
