title: Summary:  achievements, critical issues, and thoughts on the future.
abstract: The number of individuals exposed to particle radiations in cancer treatment worldwide is increasing rapidly, and space agencies are developing plans for long duration, deep space missions in which humans could be exposed to significant levels of radiation from charged particles. Hence, the NCRP 47 th Annual Meeting on "Scientific and Policy Challenges of Particle Radiations in Medical Therapy and Space Missions" was a timely opportunity to showcase the current scientific knowledge regarding charged particles, enhance cross-fertilization between the oncology and space scientific communities, and identify common needs and challenges to both communities as well as ways to address those challenges. This issue of Health Physics contains papers from talks presented at that meeting and highlights provocative questions and the ample opportunities for synergism between space and particle-therapy research to further understanding of the biological impacts of particle radiations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA. kheld@partners.org
authors.forename: Kathryn D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Held
mesh_terms: D004601:Elementary Particles / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D012106:Research / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013026:Space Flight