New York’s First Proton Therapy Center to Open in July
As featured in the Wall Street Journal May 16, 2019
New York City is set to get a new radiation-treatment center, nearly a decade in the making, that uses proton beams to treat cancerous tumors.
Called the New York Proton Center, it is a for-profit partnership of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Montefiore Health System and Mount Sinai Health System, managed by the ProHEALTH company. Financing for the center was provided in part by the hospitals.
It will be the first such proton therapy facility in New York state when it starts treating patients in July. It was slated to begin treating patients in 2018 and initially set to cost $300 million. Charles Simone, Chief Medical Officer for the New York Proton Center, estimated that costs may rise closer to $330 million by the time the center opens in East Harlem.
At full capacity, the center will treat about 1,400 patients a year, including some 200 pediatric patients. There are four treatment rooms and every patient will have access to in-house social workers and nutritionists to support their treatment.