In central Dresden, behind six-meter thick concrete walls, the first instrument of its kind to be used in the fight against cancer is built. The equipment weighs a total of 700 metric tons and is designed for a new kind of proton therapy. It consists primarily of a particle accelerator (cyclotron), a radiation detector and a moving gantry, allowing the patient to be irradiated from different angles. The team at the “National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology” (OncoRay) accelerates protons in the particle accelerator to two- thirds the speed of light and uses them to destroy the genetic material of the cancer cells, thereby preventing the tumour spreading.
Research scientists and doctors will start arriving at the OncoRay centre in 2014, when the first patients will also be treated. In a world first, they will be testing a unique technology, which accelerates protons using high-energy laser beams instead of electromagnetic fields. This refinement considerably reduces the technical efforts required for proton therapy, resulting in big cost savings. Irradiation with protons is much less invasive than conventional treatment with ultra-hard X-rays. Unlike photons, protons only destroy the cell tissue of the tumour, leaving the tissue in the projection angle and behind the cancer cells unaffected.