| As a leading modality in modern precision radiotherapy, heavy-ion therapy has achieved significant technological and clinical advances in cancer treatment in recent years. Compared to conventional photon radiotherapy, heavy-ion beams exhibit unique Bragg peak dose distribution characteristics, enabling highly concentrated dose deposition within tumor targets while significantly reducing radiation damage to surrounding normal tissues. More importantly, heavy-ion beams possess superior relative biological effectiveness, which significantly enhances their tumoricidal effect against traditionally radioresistant tumor types, including melanoma, osteosarcoma, and chordoma. This review systematically examines the key physical challenges and solutions in heavy-ion radiotherapy, focusing on the physical properties of heavy-ion beams, dosimetric characteristics, treatment planning systems, image-guidance technologies, respiratory motion management, and quality control. Furthermore, it provides insights into future directions for this field. |
