Radiation surgery with protons at the Trento Proton Therapy Centre

This week, at the Trento Proton Therapy Centre, the first patient undergoing radiation surgery with protons was treated, following a technical implementation phase performed during previous months. “New generation” (active delivery) equipment was used for the treatment. This first case was successfully treated.

The Trento Proton Therapy Centre is the only one in the world where this equipment is used to delivery radiation surgery treatments. Up to now, these treatments were used in daily clinical practice only in the Proton Therapy Centre at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston (USA) but they were performed with “old generation” (passive delivery) equipment. Radiation surgery with protons is used to treat small, spherical tumours that can also be removed with more traditional methods (gamma-knife, cyber-knife, and linear accelerators).  The prominent feature of the method that was just experimented is that it guarantees the delivery of a tumoricidal that is ideal for the tumour, thus saving the surrounding healthy tissue.