Mevion Medical Systems, in partnership with The National Association for Proton Therapy hosted an educational webinar on February 2nd. Titled “Proton Therapy for Complex Indications: Pediatric, H&N, CNS, and More”, this webinar featured Mevion users’ expertise and clinical experience in treating those complex indications with the Mevion HYPERSCAN pencil beam scanning technology.
The full webinar recording is available on-demand here.
By Dr. Stephanie Perkins, MD
Associate Professor
Director, S. Lee Kling Proton Therapy Center
Chief, Pediatric Radiotherapy Service Washington University School of Medicine
Siteman Cancer Center was the world’s first compact proton therapy center and treated their first patient in December 2013. Dr. Perkins shared that as of August 2022, the center had treated 232 pediatric patients. In their pediatric practice, proton therapy is used as a standard of care for all curable brain tumors, all craniospinal treatments, and almost all soft tissue sarcomas and neuroblastoma cases. Currently, about 33% of pediatric proton patients need craniospinal treatments, taking about 30 – 45 minutes, depending on anesthesia and patient height.
Dr. Perkins shared various cases demonstrating that proton therapy benefits pediatric patients with fewer side effects and significant sparing to healthy organ-at-risk. And thanks to that, the Siteman team has seen excellent overall survival rates for brain tumors and lymphoma cases. Specifically, the 5-year overall survival for Siteman’s 220 pediatric proton patients was 80.8%, among which the 5-year overall survival rate for the 151 patients with CNS tumors was 84.5% and the 3-year overall survival rate for 12 lymphoma cases was 100%.
By Yong Chen, PhD, DABR
Associate Professor
Department of Radiation Oncology
Stephenson Cancer Center at University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) Stephenson Cancer Center at the University of Oklahoma is the state’s only NCI-designated cancer center and is ranked #1 for cancer care in Oklahoma. The center started treating with proton therapy in January 2019. Dr. Chen shared that 85% of their proton patients are adults and the other 15% are pediatrics. With four years of operation, the center has developed a very smooth workflow with the MEVION S250i with HYPERSCAN system. As an example, Dr. Chen presented a prostate case treated within 10 minutes.
Dr. Chen also presented a large field complex chest wall case and described how RayStation and HYPERSCAN made it easy to do junction matching in the treatment planning process. He then demonstrated how AA dynamic mode was used in an esophagus case and achieved excellent dose sparing for the lung.
By Geert Bosmans, PhD
Medical Physicist/Proton Manager
Maastro Clinic
Maastro is one of only three proton therapy centers in the Netherlands. Dr. Bosmans started by describing how the Mevion proton system is fully integrated within the existing radiation department, similar to the other 5 conventional LINAC systems. Maastro took only 8 months to convert 1.5 LINAC bunkers to the MEVION S250i vault, and then started the first treatment within 12 months of the accelerator delivery.
Currently, Maastro treats over 30 fractions per day and the average fraction time is 23 minutes. Dr. Bosmans presented the model-based approach required by the Netherlands with five cases, including breast cancer, brain cancer, head & neck cancer, esophageal cancer, and seminoma testis cases.
For more proton therapy updates, visit our Mev-Ionosphere blog.