Proton therapy: A new weapon against cancer in North Texas

by JANET ST. JAMES

WFAA

Posted on May 26, 2014 at 5:26 PM

IRVING Just off Highway 114 and Royal Lane in Las Colinas, the Texas Center for Proton Therapy looks like an ordinary office building under construction.

On the inside, however, it is a complicated concrete cavern designed to cure cancer.

Its complex, explained project manager Sean Ashcroft.

Proton therapy is a form of radiation treatment that delivers precisely-targeted radiation to tumors without damaging the surrounding healthy tissue. The therapy can help patients experience fewer side effects, and therefore maintain quality of life before and after treatment.

Dallas-Fort Worth is the largest metropolitan area in the United States without a proton therapy center. Houston and Oklahoma City both have the technology available.

Proton therapy is delivered through a 220-ton magnetic particle accelerator called a cyclotron. The cyclotron destined for the North Texas center is in a massive freighters cargo hold right now, being shipped from Belgium.

Delivering the power of proton in precise doses requires some unique construction techniques.

See the article here:
Proton therapy: A new weapon against cancer in North Texas