ADVANCEMENT
“Proton therapy has been
effective in treating a wide
variety of tumors, while
helping to preserve quality
of life for our patients,” said Andrew Lee,
MD, MPH, medical director, Texas Center
for Proton Therapy and the first physician
in North America to utilize pencil-beam
proton therapy to treat cancerous tumors.
In Dr. Lee’s practice, patients find precision
targeted therapy in the only proton therapy
center in the region.
Proton beam therapy is an advanced
type of radiation therapy aimed at destroying
12 DALLAS MEDICAL JOURNAL • October 2021
cancerous cells using accelerated protons.
The treatment offers submillimeter
precision that delivers high-energy proton
beams directly to tumors, minimizing damage
to surrounding healthy tissue.
“Pencil-beam scanning enables greater
conformality in tumor treatments compared
to traditional proton beam therapy,
allowing us to reach levels of precision
that was not possible even 10 to 15 years
ago,” Dr. Lee said.
Pencil-beam Scanning in
Proton Therapy
All three treatment rooms at Texas Center
for Proton Therapy feature spot-scanning
proton therapy, known as pencil-beam
scanning. Using an ultrafine proton beam
with pencil-point precision across each
three-dimensional layer of the tumor, the
tumor is essentially delicately “painted”
with spots of radiation one slice at a time
until the entire 3D tumor volume is covered.
It’s the ideal technology for irregularly
shaped tumors near sensitive areas.
Pencil-beam scanning capability also is a
prerequisite for a proton therapy center to
offer intensity modulated proton therapy
(IMPT). This type of highly specialized
proton therapy delivers a precise dose of
protons to often tight spaces through a
combination of pencil-beam proton therapy
and sophisticated treatment planning
algorithms and offers one of the most
advanced forms of radiation therapy in the
world.
Texas Center for Proton Therapy is one
of only a few centers in the country offering
pencil-beam scanning with on-board
volumetric cone beam CT. With all three
treatment rooms capable of pencil-beam
scanning, Texas Center for Proton Therapy
is the largest pencil-beam proton center in
the state.
“This type of therapy is noninvasive,
performed as an outpatient, and patients
Proton Therapy:
The Future of
Cancer Care
By Texas Center for Proton
Therapy
Photo Texas Center for Proton Therapy