Clinical Experience with the 160 MeV Proton Beam and Some Implications for Designers

The 160 MeV synchrocyclotron at Harvard University has been operated as a medical facility since 1968. Well over 1000 patients have been treated here, and the present load is about 150 patients per year. A number of different disorders have been treated, among them benign tumors of the pituitary gland, blood vessel malformations within the brain, malignant melanomas within the eye and cancer of the prostate. Enough patients with each of these disorders have been treated to justify estimates of the technical requirements, the patient load, and the cost limitations for an accelerator installation for the treatment of each disorder. Increasing the technical capabilities for a proposed installation will generally increase the cost as well as increasing the variety of disorders that can be treated. The designer should try to balance increased cost against expected benefit.