ABSTRACT
The ultimate goal of any form of curative radiotherapy resides in achieving local tumor control by suppressing the proliferative ability of all clonogenic cancer cells. If, on the one hand, the dosimetric precision inherent to charged particle therapy, in principle, allows to reduce the risk of adverse effects due to unnecessary dose absorbed by healthy tissues and/or organs at risk, on the other hand cancer radio resistance continues to represent a cause for treatment failure, leading to local recurrence, metastases and poor prognostic outlook. In order to grow and spread, cancer cells develop mutations that allow them to escape recognition and elimination by the host's immune system. Immunotherapy has gained importance in cancer treatment due to its potential to recover the individual patient's immune recognition of cancer and develop an acquired immune response against malignant cells in the entire body.
