This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
First NHS proton beam machine arrives in the UK
The machine that will enable the NHS’s first proton beam therapy (PBT) unit to treat cancer patients will arrive at the Christie hospital later.
Manchester’s Christie hospital will be the first NHS unit to provide the treatment which previously sent patients needing PBT abroad.
Up to 750 patients will use the new unit which is due to open in August 2018. Another PBT centre in the University of College London Hospital (UCLH) is due to open in 2020.
In 2016 the NHS sent 210 patients abroad for PBT, mainly to Switzerland and the US, at a cost of around £114,000 each.
The government has since invested £250 million into building the two new NHS centres. Currently, only low-energy treatment for rare eye cancers is available in the UK.
Professor Tony Lomax, deputy director of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Northern Switzerland, has previously advised the NHS on bringing the treatment to the UK. He said: “Probably for some patients modern radiotherapy is extremely good. But with [PBT] we can take on more complicated tumours and with children we really want to reduce the radiation dose to the normal tissue so I think this is where the technique has a fantastic advantage.”
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