Will the UK become the proton therapy centre of Europe?

Several companies are opening proton beam therapy centres across the UK as the treatment becomes more popular. Research suggests that proton beam cancer therapy treatment is far less harmful and traumatic to cancer patients than chemotherapy.

Several companies are opening proton beam therapy centres across the UK as the treatment becomes more popular.

Recent independent medical research suggests that proton beam cancer therapy treatment is far less harmful and traumatic to cancer patients than chemotherapy.

Proton Partners International will bring the world’s first digital PET CT system to Wales. The equipment fitted at the UK’s first proton beam therapy centre will provide cancer patients with the most advanced cancer technology available.

Philips’ Vereos PET CT is the first commercially available scanner to digital PET, significantly improving the visual quality and quantitative accuracy of PET imaging. At the heart of Vereos is a detector that converts detected photons directly into digital information. Vereos improves current clinical practice, and broadens the range of imaging techniques that are currently limited by the performance of conventional analogue PET CT systems.

Proton Partners will open the UK’s first proton beam therapy centre in Newport, Wales. It will be operational by 2017. There is a PET CT scanner in Wales, but it is not digital. The company explains the difference, “The accuracy of this new PET CT system means that we will be able to produce much clearer imagery to support early diagnosis and determine which patients are responding better to treatment with follow up scans. This means that our patients will receive a better, and more sophisticated, level of care. Our centres will not only provide imaging, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and proton therapy, but they will also be a hub to drive improvements in cancer treatment in the UK.”

Neil Mesher of Philips UK adds, “We are working with Proton Partners to bring the first Vereos system to the UK. This breakthrough innovation combines exceptional quality and accuracy in imaging at low dose rates helping doctors get answers first time around, so enabling them to make more confident diagnoses for patients.” Philips will deliver software and technology tools in the three centres to be opened by Proton Partners.

The first centre in Newport will treat traditional radiotherapy patients in 2016 and proton beam therapy patients in 2017. A centre in London will open in 2017 and will treat radiation and proton beam therapy patients by 2018. The third centre in Northumberland will deliver radiotherapy by 2017 and proton beam therapy by 2018. Each centre will have an Ion Beam Applications proton beam therapy machine, Elekta radiotherapy equipment and Philips imaging equipment.

Proton beam therapy was first used just after WWII as a treatment for cancer. It is particularly useful for cancers where it is essential to avoid damaging healthy tissue around the tumour. 100,000 patients have been treated using proton beam therapy worldwide and there is considerable evidence of its success. The NHS has estimated there will be 1,487 patients requiring proton beam therapy in the UK in 2017/18.

There are various tumours approved for proton beam therapy by the NHS, which consist mainly of paediatric cases, in addition to certain head, neck, brain and central nervous system tumours. But many other types of tumours are being treated successfully in other parts of the world, including lung, liver, prostate, pancreatic and breast tumours, with a significant number of clinical trials underway.

There are 56 operational facilities worldwide with a further 53 sites in planning and development. The only operational proton beam therapy facility in the UK is the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Merseyside, but it is a low energy system that only treats rare eye cancers.

Proton Partners International will be offering treatment for tumours that are currently being treated in the UK and other parts of the world. The centres will be available for NHS patients from England, Scotland and Wales, private medical insurance referrals plus self-pay for people from the UK and overseas. Each centre will be able to treat up to 700 patients a year.

Radiation therapy is an extremely common treatment for cancer. Proton therapy uses a beam of protons to irradiate a tumour by killing cancerous cells. A particle accelerator or cyclotron that is similar in concept to the particle collider technology used for research at CERN in Switzerland generates the protons. The IBA Proteus One Compact was launched six years ago and incorporates many significant developments from earlier proton beam therapy systems. It is a single-room solution making it comparatively small and significantly cheaper than competing multi-room systems.

Proton Partners International is a private limited company based in Wales and the aim is that the new centres will be hubs of excellence for advanced cancer treatment. Wales and London are obvious choices but why a remote location in Northumberland? Mike Moran of Proton Partners explains: “By placing our centre in Northumberland, close to transport links, it can cater to a wider group of people, including the North of England and Scotland.”

Other companies are looking to set up centres in the UK, to make it the leading country in Europe for cancer treatment. The first to be announced is that hospital group Circle Holdings has set up a joint company with Advanced Oncotherapy to run a proton beam cancer therapy unit in Harley Street. London. The NHS is expected to open its own centres in 2018.