Virtua Health, Penn Medicine unveil $45M proton therapy center - NJBIZ

Two wellness attraction providers are bringing precocious crab attraction to patients successful South Jersey with the caller $45 cardinal Penn Medicine | Virtua Health Proton Therapy Center in Voorhees. 

Located connected Virtua’s campus, it volition beryllium the archetypal proton therapy halfway successful South Jersey and among less than 50 successful the U.S., according to an Oct. 17 announcement. 

“Proton therapy offers caller anticipation for radical with analyzable oregon recurring cancers, and we are thrilled to bring this world-class attraction to our community,” Stephanie Fendrick, enforcement vice president and main strategy serviceman astatine Virtua Health, said successful a statement. 

Proton therapy is simply a painless, noninvasive attraction that uses a beam of high-energy protons to destruct crab cells, the systems explained. It involves the acceleration of sub-atomic particles to astir 450 cardinal miles per hour, a velocity indispensable to make the vigor needed to present targeted radiation, said Dr. James Metz, seat of radiation oncology astatine Penn Medicine. 

The 8,600-square-foot facility, which started operation successful June 2020, is expected to unfastened to patients by aboriginal 2023. The halfway is connected to the existing Penn Medicine | Virtua Health Radiation Oncology suite. 

How does it each work? 

Penn Medicine and Virtua Health precocious hosted a preview event, which included behind-the-scenes tours of the technology. 

Located retired of show to patients, a 90-ton instrumentality called a cyclotron is the superior constituent to the therapy. The cyclotron sits successful an underground vault, enclosed by 8-foot-by-21-foot-thick factual walls. The installation besides houses a 90-ton gantry, which is utilized to nonstop the proton beam to deed the tumor. 

Sound intense? The physicians said the mean attraction volition instrumentality astir 30 minutes from accomplishment to departure. 

The wellness centers said this precocious signifier of radiation therapy, which tin beryllium utilized for assorted types of cancer, offers caller imaginable for recovery, endurance and prime of life. Also, it’s a preferred enactment for tumors located adjacent highly delicate areas (such arsenic the spinal cord, bosom and brain) oregon for those that cannot beryllium afloat removed by surgery. 

Fendrick added that the halfway is a “major milestone successful Virtua’s longtime concern with Penn Medicine.”  

Penn Medicine and Virtua Health’s collaboration dates to 2015 and includes some crab and neuroscience services. The caller halfway is portion of the Penn Medicine | Virtua Health Cancer Program, which provides crab attraction to patients successful Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties. 

“At the halfway of our concern with Virtua is our committedness to making it convenient for patients to get the precise champion care, arsenic adjacent to their homes arsenic possible,” said Kevin Mahoney, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. 

Virtua President and CEO Dennis Pullin added, “It’s an unthinkable root of anticipation to person close present successful South Jersey.”