First Patient Treated on Mevion’s Next-Generation Proton Therapy System

Mevion Medical Systems announces the treatment of the first patient in the world on the MEVION S250i Proton Therapy System at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.
 
“The launch of the HYPERSCAN system is a major milestone in the field of proton therapy. It is the realization of a vision to create the most clinically advanced and economically viable proton therapy system in the world making proton therapy accessible across the spectrum of healthcare providers,” said Joseph Jachinowski, CEO of Mevion Medical Systems. “Mevion has consistently pushed the field of proton therapy forward. We first changed proton therapy by introducing a new paradigm of economic, compact proton systems and now we are doing it again by deploying an advanced approach to pencil beam delivery. These achievements are the result of a team passionate about the impact proton therapy can have on patients’ lives.”
 
New Clinical Capabilities
Proton therapy is a precise form of radiation therapy that has the potential to reduce the amount of radiation exposure in some cancers. The Mevion system at MedStar Georgetown includes HYPERSCAN pencil beam scanning (PBS) which improves on existing proton scanning capabilities enabling clinicians to deliver conformal fields faster and with more precision than in the past.
 
The HYPERSCAN system utilizes a novel technology, the Adaptive Aperture, a proton multi-leaf collimator (pMLC), to achieve sharp lateral dose gradients. Multi-leaf collimators are common to conventional radiation therapy and were a key enabling technology to make intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) possible. Mevion’s Adaptive Aperture pMLC is unique to proton therapy. Designed to protect sensitive organs at every energy layer of the treatment, this new type of proton MLC enables a similar paradigm change in proton therapy.
 
Uptick in Global Adoption
In addition to MedStar Georgetown, the MEVION S250i system is under active installation at centers throughout the United States and Europe. Two more HYPERSCAN centers will be treating patients by the end of 2018. An additional two centers are in the construction planning phase, both of which are instances of existing sites adding a second treatment room.
 
“We are excited to see the rapid adoption of Mevion’s HYPERSCAN technology,” said Yoel Bakas, senior vice president of sales for Mevion Medical Systems. “Proton therapy has long been viewed as economically unrealistic for most cancer centers. The uptick in proton projects and repeat customers speaks to the strength of the Mevion economic and clinical approach.”
 
Integration and Economics in Proton Therapy
At Medstar Georgetown, the proton system is integrated directly to the hospital as part of a renovation to the existing cancer center entrance. While other proton centers often have to be built as separate standalone facilities, the compact size of the Mevion system enables it to be integrated to existing radiation oncology departments. This can bring significant economic savings to these projects by enabling the centers to share existing support services and personnel throughout the hospital rather than duplicating them in a standalone facility.
 
Mevion Medical Systems Inc. is a provider of proton therapy systems for use in radiation treatment for cancer patients. Mevion is based in Littleton, Mass., with presence in Europe and China.