Proton therapy debated

[Guest guest]

At first,

Beaumont says

it plans to use protons only for cancers where the technology shows promise.

The center could branch out to treating more common types of cancer such as

lung, breast and prostate cancer, Vicini said, but for now, medical evidence is

lacking on whether for these particular illnesses protons deliver better

results than standard X-rays.

Proton

therapy began in '50s

Doctors

first began experimenting with proton therapy in the mid-1950s. It was not

until 1990 that the nation's first proton facility opened at Loma University Medical

Center in California. A decade later, Massachusetts General Hospital followed suit, opening its own

such center in 2001.

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