Southwest Florida welcomes first proton beam therapy center

This is a big week in cancer care for patients in Southwest Florida and beyond.

A huge cyclotron will be delivered Friday and will serve as the foundation for the only proton beam center on Florida’s west coast.

The cyclotron is expected to arrive at the Southwest Florida Proton located at 9961 Estero Oaks Drive in Fort Myers.

Proton therapy is one of the most advanced treatments directed at cancer.

Still in shipping containers, a jumbo cyclotron will soon move into a massive 5,000-square-foot vault encased in cement. This is the area’s only proton beam treatment center. A type of radiation, it delivers doses on a proton beam.

“Traditional radiation is all X-ray based,” said Dr. Todd Pezzi, radiation oncologist at Advocate Radiation Oncology. “Proton therapy is a particle, and the particles are spun in a large, expensive machine and then accelerated into the patient at a pre-specified point, and they are fundamentally different from X-rays and that X-rays pass through your body through and through, and protons actually stop at a pre-specified point.”

Bringing it here is an up-leveling of cancer care. Arie Dosoretz has long dreamed of proton Beams; he’s a founding partner of Southwest Florida Proton and Advocates Radiation Oncology.

“One of the unique characteristics of protons is that you can put the dose just into the tumor, and you can really minimize how much of it goes around the tumor to other healthy tissue,” Dosoretz said.

For that reason, it can be used near the spinal cord, brain and other valuable organs.

“Some common examples of tumors that derive value from proton therapy are pediatric tumors, head, neck tumors, breast cancer, prostate cancer, certain GI tumors and lung cancers,” Pezzi said.

The machine weighs about 190-tons. Once on site, it needs to be reconstructed.

“After it’s put in the building, it then has to be tested, calibrated and be made perfect before we can treat patients with it,” Dosoretz said.

A futuristic therapy, it will soon be a present part of local cancer care.

Southwest Florida Proton has been years in the making. Launched in 2021, it had an initial price tag of $80 million.

Last year, a holding group for Lee Health joined as an investor. Once up and running, it will be one of only 45 centers in the U.S.