The first patients have been treated at the newly opened proton therapy centre at the Christie hospital in Manchester, UK.  It has been reported by the BBC that fifteen-year-old Mason Kettley, who has a rare brain cancer, will be amongst the first treated. This facility is the first o

A state of the art proton beam therapy machine, the ‘cyclotron’, was installed at the specialist cancer hospital The Christie in Manchester last week, marking a major milestone in a national NHS plan to provide high energy proton beam therapy in the UK from next year. Proton beam ther

Cancer is a major social problem and it is the main cause of death between the ages 45-65 years. In the treatment of cancer, radio therapy (RT) plays an essential role. RT with protons, due to their unique physical and radiobiological properties, offers several advantages over photons

Cockcroft Institute researchers are part of a major collaborative project to develop more powerful proton imaging technology that could provide more accurate cancer treatments. Cockcroft Institute researchers from Lancaster University and the University of Manchester are collaborating

Radiotherapy, most commonly with x-rays, is a widely used and effective form of cancer treatment. Using protons instead of x-rays allows better localisation of the radiation dose to the tumour and therefore less damage the surrounding healthy tissue. New imaging techniques such as pro

Particle accelerators have been used for medicine since the earliest days after their invention, and already in 1896 Herbert Jackson realised that the greater energies and superior directionality afforded by accelerated particles could be advantageous over decay radiation for the trea