The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, has announced plans to establish a proton-beam therapy program at its three cancer centers in Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota.
New four-room treatment facilities will be built on its Scottsdale, AZ, campus and its Rochester campus, at an estimated cost of $182 million and $188 million, respectively. Mayo plans to initiate the design and construction of both facilities simultaneously, with the first treatment rooms scheduled to be opened by late 2014 or early 2015.
The new program will exclusively use intensity-modulated proton therapy based on pencil-beam scanning, a more precise form of proton therapy treatment that allows greater control over radiation doses, shorter treatment times, and fewer side effects; it also may be more cost-effective for some cancer patients.
More than 20,000 cancer patients receive treatment each year at the Mayo Clinic's Rochester, Scottsdale, and Jacksonville, FL, cancer centers.
Mayo will use the pencil-beam scanning to treat some head and neck, breast, gastrointestinal, lung, spine, and prostate cancers, as well as tumors in or near the eye. It is expected to be especially beneficial to children, who are more susceptible to developing new cancers and quality-of-life morbidities when they undergo radiation therapy.
Utilizing pencil-beam scanning exclusively will help advance the science, according to Robert Foote, MD, chair of the department of radiation oncology in Rochester. Foote said that the Mayo Clinic will establish a proton therapy patient registry to follow patients' outcomes prospectively. Registry data will enable cancer specialists to determine which patients derive the most benefit, and researchers will be able to incorporate the findings into new care models and services for cancer patients.
Related Reading
How to build a proton therapy facility, October 11, 2010
AHRQ analyzes particle beam radiation therapy, September 14, 2009
Protons promise lower second cancer risk, May 8, 2009
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