Since opening in August of 2019, we’ve experienced the fastest ramp-up of any proton center in the country—an especially notable accomplishment given our sharp drop in volume at the peak of the pandemic.
By August 2020, the end of our first year of operation, we had treated nearly 540 patients in our four treatment rooms—making us one of the busiest centers in the U.S. and the fastest – by a wide margin – to ever reach that milestone.
We’ve also become the national leader in treating patients with complex cancers. It’s an accomplishment we largely credit to our highly experienced clinical team and to our hospital partners, who recognized the need for a single facility where their patients, and others in the region, could receive proton therapy without traveling far from home
We exceeded national averages in other areas as well:
- Reirradiation, which is primarily performed on adults, represents 41 percent of our patients. The national average for proton centers is 11 percent. Reirradiation can provide patients with recurrent cancers a new chance of cure.
- Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy, also known as SBRT, represents 8.3 percent of our case load. That’s nearly 12 times the national average of 0.7 percent. SBRT uses very high doses of radiation to deliver ultra-precise, highly effective ablative treatments.
- Head and neck tumors accounted for 38 percent of our cases in 2020, compared to 13 percent nationally. These tumors can be especially challenging to treat due to their proximity to critical organs and structures such as the optic nerves, brainstem, vocal cords, salivary glands and brain.
