Canada Approves Mevion Medical Proton Therapy System

The Canadian government has cleared the way for cancer patients in Canada to benefit from proton therapy, an advanced form of radiation therapy. The Mevion S250 proton therapy system has become the first such system to receive a medical device license from Health Canada, the federal department responsible for public health, and now is approved to be installed at cancer facilities across the country.

“We are proud to be the first system approved to provide this revolutionary treatment option for cancer patients in Canada,” said Joe Jachinowski, president/CEO of Mevion Medical Systems Inc., which developed the therapy system. “Proton therapy is a game-changing cancer treatment that specifically targets tumor cells, sparing the healthy cells nearby and potentially reducing the side effects caused by conventional radiation therapies. This is a major addition to the cancer fighting tools now available to physicans and patients in Canada.”

Proton therapy targets cancer cells more precisely than traditional photon radiation treatment and results in less damage to surrounding healthy tissue and organs. Because of this, it is ideal for treating pediatric patients and adult patients with cancers in sensitive locations, such as near the brain, spine, heart, and lungs.

The Mevion S250 offers the same capabilities of significantly larger and more expensive proton therapy systems but with a much smaller footprint, improved reliability, more efficient patient access, and dramatically lower capital and operational costs.

“The Mevion S250 represents the most innovative development in proton therapy systems and a market shift away from the large, costly systems that are rapidly becoming obsolete technology,” said Jachinowski. “Installations of several Mevion S250s across the country – instead of a single installation of a larger, more expensive proton therapy system – would allow more patients to be treated for their cancers close to home. This means the potential for greater treatment access at less cost across Canada.”

According to the Canadian Cancer Society, an estimated 97,700 men and 93,600 women were diagnosed with cancer in Canada in 2014. Of these new cases, many were types of cancer that are frequently treated with proton therapy, including lung cancer (13.9 percent of new cancer cases in men, 13.3 percent in women), cancer in the brain or central nervous system (1.7 percent of new cancer cases in men, 1.3 percent in women), prostate cancer (24.1 percent of new cancer cases in men), and breast cancer (26.1 percent of new cancer cases in women).

The Childhood Cancer Canada Foundation estimates that there are about 10,000 children living with cancer in the country. Children are frequently diagnosed with types of cancer that can be treated with proton therapy, such as brain tumors, neuroblastoma, and sarcomas.

The world’s first Mevion S250 is installed at the S. Lee Kling Proton Therapy Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Mo., and has been treating patients for more than a year. Six additional Mevion S250 systems are being installed in the United States. They are at the Stephenson Cancer Center at the University of Oklahoma; Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J.; Ackerman Cancer Center in Jacksonville, Fla.; University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland, Ohio; MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.; and the University of Florida Health Cancer Center at Orlando Health.

Mevion Medical Systems develops proton therapy systems for use in radiation treatment for cancer patients. The company claims its flagship product, the Mevion S250 proton therapy platform, is the only modular, single room proton therapy system currently on the market.