Proton therapy and FLASH research revolutionize personalized cancer care

The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s new $100 million proton therapy cancer center, in collaboration with Nationwide Children’s Hospital, is offering patients highly tailored cancer treatment in a 55,000-square-foot wing of The James Outpatient Care.

Arnab Chakravarti, MD, chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology and the Klotz Chair in Cancer Research at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, is a renowned expert on proton therapy. He’s worked for the past decade to bring the new center to its culmination in fall 2023. The James Outpatient Care has the first ProBeam 360° Multi-Room System to become operational in the world and houses next-generation precision proton therapy technology that’s designed to be continuously updated as technology advances.

“This is an opportunity to leverage precision medicine. We’re not just helping patients, but in certain cases, we’re curing them of cancer,” Dr. Chakravarti says.

The center provides unique advantages in the field of proton therapy. It features rooms housing two gantries for pencil beam scanning intensity modulators and a room with a fixed beam used to test FLASH proton therapy, a form of proton therapy that administers an ultra-high dose rate of radiation to deliver cancer treatment in less than one second.