Skip to main content
  • Paul Scherrer Institut PSI
  • PSI Research, Labs & User Services

Digital User Office

  • Digital User Office
  • DE
  • EN
  • FR
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)
Suche
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)

Hauptnavigation

  • Our ResearchOpen mainmenu item
    • Current topics from our research
    • Matter and Material
    • Human Health
    • Energy and Environment
    • Large Research Facilities
    • Brochures
    • 5232 — The PSI magazine
    • Research Divisions & Labs (only english)
  • IndustryOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Technology Transfer
    • Expertise
    • Spin-off Companies
    • Park Innovaare
  • Proton TherapyOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Physician & Patient Information
  • CareerOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Job Opportunities
    • Working at PSI
    • Personnel Policy
    • Equal Opportunities, Diversity & Inclusion
    • Training and Further Education
    • Vocational Training
    • PSI Education Centre
    • Career Center
    • Support Program "PSI Career Return Program"
    • PSI-FELLOW/COFUND
  • Visit to PSIOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Visitor Centre psi forum
    • Schülerlabor iLab
    • Public Events
    • How to find us
  • About PSIOpen mainmenu item
    • PSI in brief
    • Strategy
    • Guiding principles
    • Facts and figures
    • Organisational structure
    • For the media
    • Suppliers and customers
    • Customers E-Billing
  • DE
  • EN
  • FR

Digital User Office (mobile)

  • Digital User Office

You are here:

  1. PSI Home
  2. Our Research
  3. Current topics from our research
  4. It's important to keep doing research

Secondary navigation

Our Research

  • Current topics from our research Expanded submenu item
    • Matter and Material
    • Human Health
    • Energy and Environment
    • ESI Platform
    • Large research facilities
    • Project SLS 2.0
    • Topic Overview
    • Archive
  • 5232 – The magazine of the Paul Scherrer Institute
    • Contact
  • Brochures
  • Films
    • Virtual Tour
  • Media corner
    • Media Releases
    • Social Media Newsroom
3 October 2019

"It's important to keep doing research"

Human Health Proton Therapy Medical Science

Proton therapy is time-consuming and more costly than conventional radiation therapy, but its accuracy in targeting tumours is unsurpassed. PSI's Damien Weber, head of the Centre for Proton Therapy (CPT), is not the only one convinced of this. Across Europe, new centres are being set up to treat more cancer patients. That not only helps the affected children and adults, but also contributes to safety.

Mr. Weber, how did it come about that patients receive treatment at PSI?

The largest and most experienced proton therapy centres worldwide have arisen from research institutes. There are historical reasons for that. You need an enormous infrastructure, and PSI, like other centres too, had it. This made it possible to develop the method in the first place, make it suitable for patients, and continuously improve it. Proton therapy requires a lot of experience, especially for patient safety and for even better results.

PSI has the only proton therapy centre in Switzerland. Is that sufficient to care for all patients?

This is a sensitive but important question in a country that regulates health care at the cantonal level. When you look at the numbers, it is sufficient at the moment because not all patients for whom proton therapy might be indicated receive it. The Federal Office of Public Health FOPH has established a list of cancers for which proton therapy may be used. This list currently includes ten indications for adults as well as all tumours in children and adolescents up to 18 years of age. In Switzerland, with two gantries, we already have more than twice as many irradiation places per inhabitant as, for example, Great Britain. To be good, a proton therapy centre must have a critical mass of patients. If it has only a limited number of patients, it's lacking in experience.

How are the indications for proton therapy set?

That is different in every country. The list in Switzerland was set up 20 years ago, when proton therapy was still in its early stages. Since then, no new diseases have been added to the list. Even though I, as a physician, am convinced about proton therapy: We have to provide data that can prove whether or not proton therapy actually is superior to conventional therapy and causes fewer complications. But the number of patients in Switzerland is small, so you have to collaborate internationally to get enough reliable data on proton therapy for the individual clinical pictures.

How do you want to establish that proof?

The number of proton therapy centres in Europe is increasing. There will be around thirty in 2024. Some of them have joined forces in a network, the European Particle Therapy Network, to concertedly conduct clinical trials with three hundred and more patients. PSI was one of the founders of this network. In addition, PSI is an associate member of the American NRG Oncology Network. It is planned that PSI, in the not too distant future, will participate in one to two randomised Phase 3 studies. One of these will concern lung cancer.

The lungs move when a person is breathing. Is it really possible to irradiate lung cancer as accurately as tumours in other parts of the body?

We have developed a technique that makes this possible. We recently treated a 17-year-old woman with it for the first time. It is very unusual for children or adolescents to get lung cancer, which normally afflicts adults. Now this young woman is cancer-free. That shows how important it is to keep doing research in this field and to continue developing the methods.

Interview: Sabine Goldhahn

Further information

  • See also the article: Cancer cells under attack
     
5232 Ausgabe 3 /2019

5232 — Das Magazin des Paul Scherrer Instituts

Ausgabe 3/2019
in German
View in issuu.com
Download
Subscribe to our magazine
Order printed copy

Sidebar

5232 01/2021

5232 — Das Magazin des Paul Scherrer Instituts

01/2021
in German
View in issuu.com
Download

Visitor Centre psi forum

Experience research live


The iLab School Laboratory

Experience Science - Explore Research

top

Footer

Paul Scherrer Institut

Forschungsstrasse 111
5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland

Telephone: +41 56 310 21 11
Telefax: +41 56 310 21 99

How to find us
Contact

Visitor Centre psi forum
School Lab iLab (in German)
Center for Proton Therapy
PSI Education Centre
PSI Guest House
PSI Gastronomie (in German)

 

Service & Support

  • Phone Book
  • User Office
  • Accelerator Status
  • PSI Publications
  • Suppliers
  • E-Billing
  • Computing
  • Safety (in German)

Career

  • Working at PSI
  • Job Opportunities
  • Training and further education
  • Vocational Training (in German)
  • PSI Education Center

For the media

  • PSI in brief
  • Facts and Figures
  • Media corner
  • Media Releases
  • Social Media Newsroom

Follow us: Twitter (in English) LinkedIn Youtube Issuu RSS

Footer legal

  • Imprint
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Editors' login