Proton beam therapy expands Mayo Clinic’s cancer care capabilities. In properly selected patients — especially children and young adults and those with cancers located close to critical organs and body structures — proton beam therapy is an advance over traditional radiotherapy.
Mayo Clinic’s Proton Beam Therapy Program differs from most other programs in the United States — it exclusively features intensity-modulated proton beam therapy with pencil beam scanning. This, the latest form of proton beam therapy, uses spot scanning to deposit streams of protons back and forth through a tumor, closely targeting the tumor and sparing healthy tissue.
Mayo Clinic Arizona Cancer Center (Image credit: Mayo Clinic)
On Thursday, February 18, 2016, Mayo Clinic hosted the grand opening event for Mayo Clinic Building – Phoenix, home to the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center and the new Mayo Clinic Proton Beam Therapy Program — the first such cancer treatment program in the Southwest. The new Proton Beam Therapy Program will begin treating patients in mid-March.
Proton beam technology delivers radiation therapy in a way that offers the potential for fewer side effects and higher cure rates, often for patients whose cancers cannot be treated safely any other way.
MAYO CLINIC PROTON BEAM SNAPSHOT
- First in the five-state (Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico) Southwest region
- The therapy provides more precise radiological cancer treatment and hope for thousands of patients.
- All eight treatment rooms (four in Arizona and four in Rochester, Minnesota) in Mayo Clinic’s facilities will use pencil beam scanning.
- Children, young adults and healthy older patients with tumors next to sensitive critical organs will receive the highest priority.
- Mayo Clinic is investing more than $370 million from its capital budget and donor support.
- The cutting-edge cancer treatment program will be housed in a 100,000-square-foot building on the Mayo campus in Phoenix, which will boost the economy with construction jobs and permanent medical jobs.
- Cancer is the largest clinical practice at Mayo Clinic. Every year, nearly 20,000 new cancer patients come to Mayo’s three campuses – in Arizona, Florida and Rochester – where they receive the most comprehensive and advanced cancer care available anywhere.
- Mayo Clinic is the only three-site, National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer care center in the nation.
Learn more about the Mayo Clinic Proton Beam Therapy Program at http://www.mayoclinic.org/proton-beam-therapy/our-program.
As a leading institution funded by the National Cancer Institute, the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center conducts basic, clinical and population science research, translating discoveries into improved methods for prevention, diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. For information on cancer clinical trials, call 507-538-7623.