Twelve Years
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011Today is twelve years since I completed my Prostate cancer treatment at Loma Linda in 1999. The Prostate is fine, the PSA is below 0.1 and it’s been largely a side effects free journey.
The Loma Linda experience for me was outstanding. I’ve never been treated by such caring people and I stay in touch with them to this date.
In my opinion, it is unfortunate that we only reach a small number of people with cancers treatable with Protons, and I’ve have been encouraged by the Mayo Clinic announcement that they will have two Proton centers in operation soon.
The current status of Proton Treatment centers in the United States is:
- MGH: Francis H. Burr Proton Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. The Proton Beam Unit was founded in 1962 and has the largest experience with stereotactic radiosurgery of any center in the United States. It makes use of the quantum wave properties of protons to reduce “doses to surrounding tissue beyond the target to a theoretical minimum of zero.”
- LLUMC: James M. Slater, M.D. Proton Treatment and Research Center at Loma Linda University and Medical Center, California (0ver 20 years as of Oct 2010).
- MPRI: Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute at Indiana, University.
- UFPTI: The University of Florida Proton Therapy Institute.
- MD Anderson: Anderson Cancer Center’s Proton Center Houston, TX.
- PPTCOK: ProCure Proton Therapy Center Oklahoma City, OK.
- UPENN: The Roberts Proton Therapy Center at University of Pennsylvania Health System.
- HUPTI: Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute. VA.
Others in process:
- NIPTRC: Northern University Proton Therapy and Research Center West Chicago (On Hold)
- CDH: CDH Proton Therapy Center, Warrenville, Illinois (Due to open 19 October at 11AM).
- PPTCNJ: ProCure Proton Therapy Center, New Jersey (Groundbreaking Ceremony took place on 7 April 2010). 40 miles from downtown Manhattan.
- PTCTN: ProCure Proton Therapy Center University of Tennessee Medical Center. (Scheduled to open in 2012/13,)
- SFPC: South Florida Proton Center scheduled to open in 2012.