News about New Proton Centers
Exciting news as West Chicago breaks ground for a new Proton center at Northern Illinois University on Thursday June 19th. “The Northern Illinois Proton Treatment and Research Center”.
This center will be close to the “Fermilab”, originally named the National Accelerator Laboratory, which was commissioned by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, under a bill signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 21, 1967. Founding Director Robert R. Wilson committed the laboratory to firm principles of scientific excellence, esthetic beauty, stewardship of the land, fiscal responsibility and equality of opportunity. The Universities Research Association built the laboratory, and has operated the facility under those principles since its founding.
Robert R. Wilson was credited as the key man in recognizing the medical potential for the “Proton” that is now used so successfully in treating many Cancers including Prostate cancer.
Progress University of Pennsylvania Robert’s Proton Therapy Center selected facts: (credit – U PA Information)
- First patients expected to be treated in the Summer of 2009
- Approximately 75,000 square feet, located in a mostly underground building interconnected to PENN’s Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine and PENN’s new, conventional Department of Radiation Oncology
- Center projected to treat 3,000 patients a year, including several hundred children, continuing the historically close relationship between UPHS and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
- Facility will be capable of supporting 14 stories above it for future expansion
The Robert’s Proton Therapy Center will be…
- The first such facility in the mid-Atlantic Region.
- The first in the world to be fully integrated, on-site, with a renowned cancer center, the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
- The first proton therapy center to be located on the campus of a world-class academic medical center, facilitating pioneering scientific research to measure and improve this innovative therapy.
- The first facility with precise imaging integrated onto the proton equipment, allowing physicians to know precise tumor location at the exact moment of treatment.
I was treated at Loma Linda for Prostate cancer in 1999. My free 9 year old web site is dedicated to informing men about Protons – www.prostateproton.com. I have been without side effects from Proton treatment whatsoever, for 8 years and nine months since being treated. Loma Linda is a key leader in Proton Therapy.
Jim Tuggey June 10, 2008
