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Services & Facilities

The Proton Therapy Center is the first fully integrated facility in the world, and the only proton therapy facility located within a comprehensive cancer center.

Amenities include: 

  • Eight examination rooms
  • Four treatment rooms 
  • One experimental treatment room
  • A treatment simulation suite for CT, PET/CT and MRI imaging capability
  • Medical dosimetry areas for treatment planning
  • A library
  • Conference and education facilities

Pencil Beam Scanning

It is the radiation oncologist’s mantra: Deliver the maximum dose of radiation to the malignant tumor, while limiting damage to healthy surrounding tissue. Today more than ever, new tools are enabling physicians at the Proton Therapy Center at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center to harness supercharged proton particles and conform them more closely to the rugged landscape and uneven contours of a cancer tumor. Using a technology known as pencil beam scanning, also known as spot scanning, protons are given the mission: home in on cancer cells and destroy. As much an art form as a war tactic, pencil beam has the ability to treat the most complex of tumors, like those of the prostate, brain, base of the skull and eye, while leaving healthy tissue and critical structures untouched.

The advantage lies in the beam’s capacity to approach the tumor from multiple directions, creating a “U” shape around these structures and avoiding them entirely during treatment. Side effects common after radiation therapy are reduced and healthy organs are preserved because the radiation is confined to the tumor.

Powerful scanning magnets direct thousands of ultra fine proton beams, one by one, toward a patient’s tumor. Intricate treatment planning allows for the protons to deposit their potent dose of radiation to the exact dimensions of the tumor, leaving nearby healthy tissue and critical structures untouched.

A pioneer in radiation oncology, The Proton Therapy Center has treated over 40 patients with the pencil beam to date and was the first in North America and one of only three clinical centers in the world to employ this technology. M. D. Anderson Cancer Center will continue to make strides in the field by making the combination of precision and potency found in pencil beam technology accessible to increasing numbers of patients in a clinical setting. As the technology evolves, the pencil beam will ultimately be applied to any tumor site where proton therapy is used, including cancers of the head and neck, brain and prostate. It is an especially attractive future option for solid tumors in children, who are generally more sensitive to the adverse effects of radiation.

Learn more about the pencil beam (pdf)

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