England to fight cancer with proton beams

Government says treatment will soon be offered in London and Manchester to 1,500 patients a year. London Cancer patients will soon be able to receive revolutionary radiotherapy in England. At present, those needing proton beam therapy are flown to the US or Switzerland to receive it, at an average cost of £90,000 (Dh524,282) to the National Health Service (NHS). But the government announced that the treatment will soon be offered in London and Manchester, with the capacity to help 1,500 patients a year. Children The therapy uses charged particles instead of x-rays to target tumours, and is particularly useful for certain cancers in children, who are at risk of lasting damage to organs that are still growing. It can give a higher dose of radiotherapy that causes minimal damage to surrounding healthy tissue, and also causes fewer side-effects than x-rays. Conventional treatment can lead to deafness, reduced IQ and secondary cancers. Because it is more accurate, proton beam therapy can also treat tumours in hard-to-reach places — such as the base of the skull or the brain, eye or spine — with higher success rates. Treatment sites Under a £250 million programme funded by the Department of Health, proton beam therapy facilities will be built at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust hospital in Manchester and the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The sites will not be fully up and running until 2017, and so the NHS will continue to fund treatment and travel costs for patients sent abroad in the meantime. Almost 150 have been treated under this scheme so far, and by 2015 the NHS will be spending an estimated £30 million a year to send up to 400 patients overseas. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said that offering proton beam therapy was vital to ensure that cancer facilities in the NHS were world class. "In addition to improved success rates, proton beam therapy reduces the side-effects which patients, particularly children, can suffer as a result of traditional forms of cancer treatment," he said. "Once this service is in place, The Christie and UCLH will boast unparalleled cancer facilities. It will mean more patients will be able to get this treatment." From: Gulfnews