Bloomington, Ind. - ProCure Treatment Centers, Inc. is celebrating the grand opening of the ProCure Training and Development Center (TDC), the first facility in the world dedicated to proton therapy training.

"We are honored to have ProCure Treatment Centers, the leader in development and training for proton therapy, headquartered here," said Bloomington, Indiana Mayor Mark Kruzan. "We are living in a proton savvy city that is now home to the only training facility of its kind. The Training and Development Center will bring medical professionals from across the country to Bloomington."

The TDC will provide hands-on training for radiation oncologists, medical physicists, dosimetrists, radiation therapists and other staff involved in proton therapy treatment. The facility offers clinical, technical, interpersonal and administrative training that simulates all aspects of proton therapy treatment in a replica of a proton therapy treatment center featuring everything but the actual protons.

In addition to lecture rooms for instruction and training, the two-story, 20,000-square-foot center features two treatment rooms - an inclined-beam room that simulates the beam's ability to be brought in at two angles, and a gantry room that simulates the beam rotating 360 degrees around the patient.

"The TDC provides before-the-job training ensuring that staff will be ready to treat patients before a proton therapy center is opened, reducing the start-up time in seeing the first patient," said Niek Schreuder, senior vice president of technology and medical physics at ProCure.

There are currently only five proton therapy centers operating in the United States, but it is anticipated that within the next five years, at least 10 new proton therapy facilities will open across the country, increasing the demand for skilled clinical, technical and administrative staff.

ProCure is joining with hospitals and radiation oncology practices to open proton centers. ProCure's first private practice, community-based proton therapy center is being built in Oklahoma City and is scheduled to open in 2009. ProCure also has proton therapy centers under development in Illinois and Michigan, scheduled to open in 2010.

ABOUT PROCURE TREATMENT CENTERS, INC.

ProCure Treatment Centers, Inc., based in Bloomington, Ind., was founded in 2005 by Dr. John Cameron, a particle therapy physics pioneer who was pivotal in the development of the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute. ProCure provides management support and a model for the complete design, construction, operation and maintenance of world-class proton therapy centers. Through partnerships with leading radiation oncologists and hospitals, ProCure's business model reduces the time, effort and cost involved in creating a facility, which allows physicians more time to focus on patient care. ProCure plans to increase the number of centers across the country to make proton therapy affordable and accessible to patients who would benefit from the treatment. For more information, visit www.ProCureCenters.com.

ABOUT PROTON THERAPY
Nearly 50,000 cancer patients worldwide have taken advantage of the technology to effectively treat most common types of solid tumor cancers, including head and neck, prostate, breast, lung, colorectal and rain tumors. Proton therapy's ability to precisely target tumors makes it ideal for treating tumors near vital organs, especially in children. It has been shown to reduce normal tissue damage, side effects and to lessen the probability of secondary tumors later in life.

In 1961, the Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory at Harvard University in Boston began treating patients with proton therapy. Advances in imaging technology such as CT, MRI and PET scans, helped researchers to better diagnose and visualize tumors and made proton therapy a more practical treatment option. The first hospital-based proton treatment center in the United States was built in 1990 at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, Calif.

In the United States, proton therapy is currently only available in five major academic centers: Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute at Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.; Frances H. Burr Proton Therapy Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston (affiliated with Harvard Medical School); The Proton Therapy Center at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at University of Texas, Houston; Loma Linda University Medical Center, in Loma Linda, Calif.; and University of Florida Proton Therapy Institute, Jacksonville, Fla. In Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania's Roberts Proton Therapy Center is scheduled to open in 2009. The Oklahoma ProCure Treatment Center, Oklahoma City, is expected to be operational in 2009.

For more information about proton therapy, read the special report in February's DOTmed Business News.