Beaumont Health will unveil today a high-tech cancer-fighting therapy that is considered ideal for destroying cancer cells close to vital organs.
The $40-million Proton Therapy Center in Royal Oak will be one of only 25 such operational centers in the country and the only one in Michigan. The treatment, which targets cancer cells more precisely, is called proton beam therapy.
Although the therapy is touted as a way to boost the quality of life for patients because it can reduce side effects, proton beam therapy is also controversial because of the cost and has been called "the Death Star of American medical technology."
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Beaumont officials say the "high-tech alternative to X-ray radiation" for cancer patients can lead to fewer side effects and offers hope against formerly incurable cancers.
“This technology will allow us to define future treatment strategies for cancer, “ Dr. Craig Stevens, chairman of Radiation Oncology for Beaumont Health, has said. “We will have the capability to retreat cancer that would have otherwise been considered unsalvageable and incurable.”In Beaumont's 2015 announcement of construction on its 25,200-square-foot Proton Therapy building, Stevens said "proton therapy is ideal for tumors close to vital organs."
Proton beam therapy "uses high-speed protons to fight cancer by aiming a high-energy ionizing beam at the tumor, destroying its cells," according to Beaumont.
Stevens acknowledged that the treatment is not effective against all cancers, but he said in the announcement that "it can be very effective in treating solid and localized tumors, including some pediatric cancers, soft tissue sarcomas, brain tumors and head/neck cancers."
But detractors — including Amitabh Chandra, a professor of social policy and director of health policy research at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, who made the Death Star reference in a 2012 Bloomberg story — have criticized the cost and complexity of the devices.
"Proton-beam therapy is like the Death Star of American medical technology — nothing so big and complicated has ever been confronted by the system. It's a metaphor for all the problems we have in American medicine," Chandra said.
Bret Jackson, president of the Economic Alliance for Michigan, which is a business and labor coalition, disputed the need for such a center in the state.
“We’re concerned that it will be used on patients that won’t receive any additional benefit, and perhaps unnecessarily," Jackson said. "We don’t think proton beam facilities in Michigan are necessary. The scientific studies on the efficacy of proton beam therapy are mixed."
And cost in the current health care environment is a real concern, Jackson said, suggesting that patients could be left with a substantial bill in the end.
The 2012 Bloomberg story said costs for proton beam therapy treatments could be about $50,000. An updated figure was not immediately available.
The Arlington, Va.-based American Society for Radiation Oncology released guidelines in 2014 detailing which cancers the group feels should be covered by private insurers and Medicare when the treatment is used. The group noted that the technology is attractive because it reduces the radiation dose to healthy tissues, potentially increasing patients' quality of life.
"To date, scientific evidence exists confirming that PBT is particularly useful in a number of pediatric cancers, particularly those in the brain, as well as for certain adult cancers such as ocular melanoma (a type of eye cancer)," the group said in a news release at the time.
The release, however, also echoed the criticism.
"(Proton beam therapy) has attracted significant attention due to its relative cost, which can be dramatically more than traditional external beam radiation therapy due to the significant expense of building and maintaining proton therapy centers," the release said.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence. Staff writer JC Reindl contributed to this report.
About proton beam therapy
Proton therapy uses high-speed protons to fight cancer by aiming a high-energy ionizing beam at the tumor, destroying its cells.
A cyclotron, or particle accelerator, creates protons from hydrogen molecules spun at extremely high speeds. They travel up to two-thirds the speed of light.
The proton beam is sent to a treatment room through a transport system consisting of magnets, called the beam line, finally arriving in the gantry. The gantry is a device that rotates around the patient delivering a beam of protons. The beam is directed to the patient through a nozzle that targets the tumor.
Source: Beaumont Health
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