The differences between X-Ray radiation therapy and proton therapy are many. In the perfect doses, X-Ray radiation therapy will help check many cancers. But sometimes, inefficient physicians may not be able to adequately judge the radiation dosages and the centers where they are required, thus leading to damage to healthy cells.

This is checked by a less effective but healthier less-than-required dose which does not harm healthy cells and also prevents many side-effects. This effect can be checked by proton therapy. Even at much higher dosages, it does not harm healthy cells or vital organs and at the same time controls cancer.

Thus, protons are basically far superior as a therapy to X-Ray radiation. All tissues comprise molecules which in turn consist of cells. Each cell has a central nucleus. Negatively charged particles called electrons orbit around the nucleus.

When charges particles with energy pass near the negative charge of electrons, due to their charge, they attract electrons out of their orbits, as is the case with protons. Known as ionization, it drastically affects both the characteristics and structures of the atoms and the molecules. This is very beneficial and forms the base of radiation therapy. Ionization leads to cancer cell damage, especially the involved genes and DNA strands.

This leads to loss of cellular functions such as binary division or ability to reproduce. These cells are attacked by an enzyme which tries to repair the cell, and might even succeed, so hence a high dosage is require which can damage the cell beyond enzyme repair. Since a cancer cell is mutated cell, it has far lesser repair capability as compared to a healthy cell. Thus, they undergo permanent transformation and this leads to large cases of cancer cell death. Hence, bad cells can be selectively destroyed among good cells.

Generic X-Ray radiation therapy and proton therapy both work on the principle of selective cell destruction. In proton therapy however, energy distribution of protons is much more targeted and can effectively and efficiently be directed directly to the tissue volumes identified by physicians as target zones. This leads consequently to more control over the treatment and also a far more efficient form of therapy.

In radiation therapy, on the other hand, a careful dosage must be designed so as to only cause damage to selective cells, and even that damage should be sufficient to cause permanent breakdown. X-Ray beams have no charge or mass. This leads to energy deposition both beyond and before the actual cancer hotzone. This has an unnecessary damaging effect on healthy tissues and bones, which could disrupt the regimen.

Protons are specific velocity energized, which directly determines the distance they penetrate. This is because as they go through the body, they slow down, and increasingly react with orbiting electrons.
As protons get to their targeted zones, they are designed to have maximum interaction. Thus, they have the most energizing effect in cancer zones only. Surrounding healthy cells receive much less injury as compared to standard radiation therapy.

This dose-distribution characteristic allows an oncologist to increase the dosage significantly while causing minimal damage to healthy surrounding cells, due to also subsequently decreasing the dosage they receive. This allows a lot more radiation dosage than would otherwise be given during radiation therapy. This leads to fewer side-effects, more impact on tumor sites and also greater tumor control.
The best part is that nothing is felt by the patients during treatment. Less normal-tissue injury results in far fewer side effects such as vomiting, nausea and diarrhea. This is directly proportional to a better life quality after treatment.