Marjorie and Leonard Williams Center for Proton Therapy
Radiation Oncologist Dr. Naren R. Ramakrishna explains the success of proton therapy.
The Marjorie and Leonard Williams Center for Proton Therapy opened in April 2016. Since then, more than 200 patients have received state-of-the-art cancer treatment.
Proton treatment pinpoints tumors by releasing energy inside as a large burst, damaging the DNA of cancer cells so that they stop dividing. Since the center opened, approximately 20 percent of patients have been children and 40 percent have been patients with prostate cancer. The center also treats patients with brain, lung, breast, head and neck and thorax cancers.
"Proton therapy is an extremely advanced form of cancer treatment, currently there's 25 centers in the U.S. offering proton therapy, but 10 years ago there were only a handful of centers in the world," Ramakrishna said. "There were so few centers for so many years and they were treating rare tumors, but now we're treating more common tumors and we should be able to get results on these patients.”
Proton treatment pinpoints tumors by releasing energy inside as a large burst, damaging the DNA of cancer cells so that they stop dividing. Since the center opened, approximately 20 percent of patients have been children and 40 percent have been patients with prostate cancer. The center also treats patients with brain, lung, breast, head and neck and thorax cancers.
"Proton therapy is an extremely advanced form of cancer treatment, currently there's 25 centers in the U.S. offering proton therapy, but 10 years ago there were only a handful of centers in the world," Ramakrishna said. "There were so few centers for so many years and they were treating rare tumors, but now we're treating more common tumors and we should be able to get results on these patients.”
