TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. (TOKYO:6302) (“SHI”) today announces that Samsung Medical Center (“SMC”) in Seoul, Korea has commenced proton therapy*1 and the opening ceremony was held on May 3, 2016.

The new proton therapy facility is equipped with cyclotron*2, which generates continuous and high intensity proton beam, and two rotating gantries. The facility has a provisional room that makes it possible to add the third treatment room with a rotating gantry in the future. The facility has two types of irradiation nozzle system, such as a multi-purpose nozzle in G1 treatment room and a dedicated scanning nozzle in G2 treatment room. The multi-purpose nozzle offers both conventional broad beam irradiation*3 and the advanced Pencil Beam Scanning (“PBS”), and each irradiation mode can be switched at random depending on target diseases. The dedicated scanning nozzle offers PBS for large field (Maximum 40 cm x 30 cm). The broad beam treatment in G1 room was started in December, 2015 and the PBS treatment in G2 room was started in March, 2016.

PBS delivers narrow proton beams to the targeted cancer tissue conforming to the shape of tumor and enables complex tumors to be irradiated precisely, while concentrating high dose and minimizing side effects for surrounding healthy tissues. In comparison with the broad beam irradiation, preparation prior to treatment is easier and the consumable cost for patient’s specific compensators and collimators can be decreased by PBS. Line scanning technology (“Line Scanning”), which is one of the PBS technologies and SHI’s original one, irradiates proton beams continuously in stable beam current for each layer with change of scanning speed. Irradiation time by Line Scanning is shorter than that by spot scanning irradiation*4 which irradiates proton beams intermittently.
The world’s first patient treatment with Line Scanning was started in National Cancer Center Hospital East (Kashiwa, Japan) in October, 2015, and Aizawa Hospital (Matsumoto, Japan) following in March, 2016. In SMC, treatment with SHI’s first dedicated scanning nozzle was started for pediatric CSI (Craniospinal irradiation) patient, taking advantage of large field capability and combination of multi field irradiation.

Youngyih Han, PhD., Professor, Medical physicist and project manager of SMC proton project, comments:
“Clinical effectiveness and expansion of diseases sites for proton therapy has been reported. Proton therapy is a state of the art radiation therapy which can increase the cure rate while minimizing the normal tissue toxicity. Therefore, facilities introducing proton therapy have been ramped up all over the world and the demand is expected to grow. On the other hand, further technical research & development and professional human resource development for proton therapy is essential. SMC is aiming to become an Asian leading facility of research & development and education & training in collaboration with SHI.”

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