Proton Beam Therapy is revolutionising cancer treatment

NEW DELHI: One morning in 2019, a 26-year-old young man, Navdiya Jemin Mansukhbhai, started to experience numbness and weakness in his right arm and leg. He thought it was due to stress at work. As the day passed, his weakness slowly increased and Jemin started facing difficulties in eating, walking and even speaking.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital in Surat, the city where Jemin resided with his wife. Doctors at the hospital conducted a few tests and an MRI of the brain, which diagnosed him with a rare brain tumour. “The doctors said that the tumour was where the brain meets the spinal cord. This junction houses critical nerves of the body that controls speech, vision, other voluntary and involuntary movements of the body. The doctors said that treatment was very difficult and operation was even more difficult as some nerves could get damaged in the process and I could lose some functions of my body. My family was scared and we did not know what to do,” Jemin said.
“After lot of consultation and research, we found that Proton Beam Therapy was one of the most successful treatments for such tumours and cancers. We researched for places that offer this therapy and were surprised to see that only Chennai in the whole of South Asia had such a treatment. We then went down to the Apollo Proton Cancer Centre in Chennai, where I was treated with Proton Beam Therapy for 28 sessions and now I am living a normal life,” Jemin added.
Proton Beam Therapy is an advanced radiation therapy which is used to treat cancer patients. This therapy is different from traditional radiation therapy which is currently used to treat patients with cancer. Unlike the traditional therapy where the radiation when administered to patients passes through the body, damaging not only the cancerous tissues, but also healthy tissues, Proton Beam Therapy targets the affected tissues precisely and deposits its radiation from charged particles only on the affected tissue and body part, thereby significantly reducing side effects and damage to healthy organs and tissues in the body. This therapy is mostly opted for by doctors and patients alike for head and neck cancers and brain tumours or cancers.
Dr Sapna Nangia, Senior Consultant, Radiation Oncology, Apollo Proton Cancer Centre, Chennai, said: “Proton Beam Therapy represents a very sophisticated form of modern radiation therapy, offering the highest degree of precision and efficacy in cancer treatment. The Apollo Proton Cancer Centre employs the latest technology in pencil beam scanning, which allows for spot-by-spot and layer by layer delivery of proton beams to the tumour site while minimizing exposure to surrounding healthy tissues. This approach is particularly advantageous for tumours located in sensitive areas such as the base of the skull or lung.”
Dr Nangia also told The Sunday Guardian that this therapy is best for treating paediatric cancer cases as the risk and damages are minimal and the child would be able to lead a healthy life for the next two to three decades. She further added that the youngest child she treated was eight months old.
Talking about the duration of the treatment, Dr Nangia told this newspaper, “It depends on what cancer we are treating. But in most cases, it takes about three to seven weeks for complete treatment, unless the case is complicated and the patient is with co-morbidities.”
Dr Nangia also told this newspaper that this therapeutic treatment can be given to both surgical as well as non-surgical cancer patients, depending upon their condition. Asked about the success rate of this therapy, Dr Nangia said that according to studies, it has been noted to be successful in 70-80% of patients.
However, Proton Beam Therapy is a costly treatment at Rs 25 lakh to Rs 30 lakh. However, the CEO of Apollo Proton Cancer Centre, Harish Trivedi, said that the price at which this treatment is given to patients in India is much lower than what it costs in the US or in the UK.
“Our prices are comparatively much cheaper than in the US and UK. We are giving this treatment at a 60% to 70% cheaper rate than in those countries. It is an expensive treatment as the infrastructure and the cost is very high. But rest assured, this is the best in class treatment in the world for cancer,” Harish Trivedi told The Sunday Guardian.
According to estimates, the Proton Beam Therapy machines cost somewhere between Rs 500-550 crore and are as big as a three-storey building. Like Jemin, the Apollo Proton Cancer Centre has treated several critical cases in the last two-and-a-half years, some of whom had been detected with life threatening cancers, but now are living a healthy life. Over the years, the centre has treated close to 1,000 patients.
For instance, Nikhat Khan, a 62-year-old woman with complaints of diabetes mellitus and hypertension, was initially evaluated with headache and diplopia (double vision) in April 2022 and numbness on the left side of her face since June 2022. She was later confirmed to have a rare brain tumour at the base of her skull, which was difficult to operate. She was administered with Proton Beam Therapy for weeks and Nikhat is currently leading a healthy life with a minor side effect of a stiff neck.