Cancer therapy with accelerated charged particles is one of the most valuable biomedical applications of nuclear physics. The technology has vastly evolved in the past 50 years, the number of clinical centers is exponentially growing, and recent clinical results support the physics and radiobiology rationale that particles should be less toxic and more effective than conventional X-rays for many cancer patients. Charged particles are also the most mature technology for clinical translation of ultra-high dose rate (FLASH) radiotherapy. However, the fraction of patients treated with accelerated particles is still very small and the therapy is only applied to a few solid cancer indications. The growth of particle therapy strongly depends on technological innovations aiming to make the therapy cheaper, more conformal and faster. The most promising solutions to reach these goals are superconductive magnets to build compact accelerators; gantryless beam delivery; online image-guidance and adaptive therapy with the support of machine learning algorithms; and high-intensity accelerators coupled to online imaging. Large international collaborations are needed to hasten the clinical translation of the research results.

利用加速带电粒子进行癌症治疗是核物理学最有价值的生物医学应用之一。该技术在过去 50 年中得到了巨大发展，临床中心的数量呈指数级增长，最近的临床结果支持了物理学和放射生物学的基本原理，即对于许多癌症患者来说，粒子应该比传统 X 射线毒性更低、更有效。带电粒子也是超高剂量率（FLASH）放射治疗临床转化最成熟的技术。然而，接受加速粒子治疗的患者比例仍然很小，并且该疗法仅适用于少数实体癌症适应症。粒子治疗的发展很大程度上取决于旨在使治疗更便宜、更适形和更快的技术创新。实现这些目标最有希望的解决方案是使用超导磁体来构建紧凑型加速器；无龙门光束传输；在机器学习算法的支持下进行在线图像引导和自适应治疗；以及与在线成像相结合的高强度加速器。需要大规模的国际合作来加速研究成果的临床转化。