As seen in the Naperville Sun
Published Sepember 29, 2009
Staff Reports

While there are only a handful of proton therapy centers across the country, a second such center is planned for DuPage County.

The global financial meltdown, however, has delayed the timeline for the construction of NIU's $159 million Proton Therapy Treatment and Research Center on a site in West Chicago north of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

The university announced in January that market conditions made financing difficult, but the project would go forward.

The project originally was expected to be complete in spring 2010, but no new completion date has been set.

In March, President Barack Obama approved a spending bill that included $4.8 million for the NIU proton therapy center.

Thanks to a new Central DuPage Hospital facility near Naperville, local cancer patients will be able to receive the treatment they need without traveling far from home.

Heuer spoke Monday at the unveiling of the 220-ton cyclotron, which measures 8 feet tall by 18 feet wide. It is capable of ionizing protons, making it the key piece of equipment in delivering proton radiation therapy.

The cyclotron was built by a Belgian company and traveled four weeks by ship, arriving at Indiana's Burns International Harbor, where it was loaded onto two 180-foot trailers for the 130-mile trip to the site at 4525 Weaver Parkway just north of Diehl Road in Warrenville.

The CDH Proton Therapy Center, a 60,000-square-foot facility capable of handling 1,500 patients per year, will be run in partnership with ProCure Treatment Centers and Radiation Oncology Consultants Ltd., functioning as part of the CDH Comprehensive Outpatient Cancer Treatment Center. The facility is set to open in the spring.

The advantage proton therapy radiation holds over traditional X-ray treatment is that it is able to be far more specific in delivering treatment to selected spots of the body.

While the traditional therapy has saved many lives, it also damages healthy tissue near the tumor and causes far more side effects and long-term problems than proton therapy, proponents say.
Moreover, proton therapy is able to adjust the treatment for the specific depth it is needed for the tumor, one of the reasons Heuer has her eyesight today.

"We know it's safer than the standard therapy," said Dr. William Hartsell, president of Radiation Oncology Consultants.

Hartsell said proton therapy was especially critical in treating cancers in a variety of cases, including children's cancers and malignancies near sensitive areas, such as the brain or a patient's spinal cord.

President and founder of ProCure John Cameron is excited at the prospect of the company's second proton therapy center.

"This makes us unique," he said. "We are the first (American) company to have two centers."

Although proton therapy treatment has been around for more than 50 years, its expense made it rare for most cancer patients. Currently there are six proton therapy centers operating in the United States.

Cameron, a physicist, called proton therapy an emerging technology that is likely to be used in 30 to 50 percent of all cancer treatments within the next decade.

The new treatment facility certainly hits home for Heuer, who said she "hopes no one will ever have to be on the receiving end" of any cancer treatments. However, she said, the financial and emotional burden of having to leave home to get the treatment you need makes a horrible situation even worse.

"There's nothing worse than to leave home for two months," she said.