The next Nuclear Race -Hospitals

Expensive therapy...but working...fewer side effects for the patient...the facilities can handle up to 150 patients a day..one patient at Loma Linda states he goes in for his treatment and then leaves to go play golf afterwards...prostate cancer appears to be at the top of list for patients who could potentially benefit from the treatment...Medicare pays about $50,000 to treat prostate cancer with protons...twice as much as with X-Rays...studies are also ongoing for the use of protons with breast cancer as well...BD

Medical centers are rushing to turn nuclear particle accelerators, formerly used only for exotic physics research, into the latest weapons against cancer. Some experts say there is a vast need for more proton centers. But others contend that an arms race mentality has taken hold, as medical centers try to be first to take advantage of the prestige — and the profits — a proton site could provide.
Proton therapy can help avoid the worst side effects, like impotence, by exposing the bladder and rectum of a prostate patient to less radiation than X-rays. The stray radiation, though, from the newest form of X-rays, called intensity-modulated radiation therapy, is already low, diminishing any advantages from proton therapy.
Until 2000, the United States had only one hospital-based proton therapy center. Now there are five, with more than a dozen others announced. Still more are under consideration. Loma Linda built the nation’s first hospital-based proton center in 1990 and has treated about 13,000 patients. Its success has inspired others.
Proton therapy can help avoid the worst side effects, like impotence, by exposing the bladder and rectum of a prostate patient to less radiation than X-rays. The stray radiation, though, from the newest form of X-rays, called intensity-modulated radiation therapy, is already low, diminishing any advantages from proton therapy.
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