National Proton Center Opens in Collaboration with Children's National Hospital

Pediatric cancer patients in the District of Columbia and elsewhere will now have access to one of the most advanced, lifesaving proton therapy technologies offered in the U.S at the newly opened Johns Hopkins National Proton Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital in collaboration with Children’s National Hospital.

The proton collaboration with Children’s National Hospital represents an expansion of the earlier collaboration between Children’s National and Johns Hopkins Medicine that established the pediatric radiation oncology program at Sibley, which treats a wide range of children’s cancer. Now open, Sibley will offer the only proton center in the Greater Washington, D.C. region with a dedicated pediatric team, with staff who are trained in pediatrics instead of adult providers who also treat children.

“This collaboration allows us to bring the latest technology to the region and offer the most advanced cancer treatment to help children live better lives,” says Dr. Kurt Newman, president and CEO at Children’s National. “As one of the top ten children’s hospitals in the national, our goal is to ensure that patients and families are receiving the best care possible.”

The new proton center offers state-of-the-art pencil beam proton therapy equipment, as well as next-generation imaging technologies such as dual energy CT-guided treatment that reduces the range of error, and the latest innovation in biomatrix MRI designed to target moving tumors in places like the lung and liver. A large mechanical arm called a gantry can move the beam 360 degrees around the patient, treating the tumor from several angles as it destroys tumor cells layer by layer.

“Proton therapy is an advanced technology that allows radiation to be delivered precisely to cancer tissue,” says Jeffrey Dome, M.D., Ph.D., vice president for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children’s National Hospital. “This provides a significant advantage compared to conventional radiation therapy, especially in children, where sparing the healthy tissue that surrounds the tumor may be critical for normal growth and development. Proton therapy shows great promise to reduce long-term side effects of radiation treatment.”

The Center at Sibley will have a fully integrated research room, which will allow clinical, basic science, and medical physics faculty to advance clinical trial research, translational research and technology development research in proton therapy. Leading experts and oncologists will study proton outcomes for sarcoma, gynecological tumors, pancreatic and liver tumors, lymph node cancers and tumors located near the heart and major blood vessels such as lung or breast cancers. In addition, the researchers will examine how the cancer cell-killing proton energy interacts with the cells and tissue surrounding the tumors.

The Johns Hopkins National Proton Center is opening in phases. The first treatment room opens in October 2019. The second room is scheduled to open in spring 2020, and the third room and fixed beam research room are scheduled to open in fall 2020.