$25 Million Cyclotron Brings New Cancer Treatment to AL
A 90-ton cyclotron arrived Tuesday on the campus of UAB. The machine will be part of a new proton therapy center, bringing a specialized cancer treatment to Alabama.
A crowd gathered Tuesday to witness a crane lift the giant cyclotron and slowly lower it through a hole in the roof of a building. That building, called the UAB Proton Center, was built specifically to house the machine.
Dr. James Bonner, chairman of radiation oncology at UAB, watched from the street below.
“Well you can see it’s kind of a glob of metal right now,” Bonner said of the new cyclotron. “So it’s been put together in a tight format so it can be shipped across the ocean.”
The cyclotron was built in Germany and took about a month to make its way to Birmingham. It costs around $25 million. The device is owned by a company called Proton International, but UAB clinical staff will be in charge of operating it. Once it is up and running, the cyclotron will spin protons really fast and generate a beam of energy to target cancerous tumors. Bonner says this is the first time this kind of treatment will be available in Alabama.
“I don’t think it’s worth the investment to have one of these on every street corner,” Bonner says. “This is a type of radiation that’s very specific for certain types of tumors.”
He says the cyclotron is more precise than traditional radiation, so it doesn’t damage surrounding tissue. That is better for treating kids or targeting tumors at the base of the skull. Bonner says UAB hopes to treat its first patient with the machine in January of next year.
Birmingham is 3rd worst in the Southeast for ozone pollution, new report says
The American Lung Association's "State of the Air" report shows some metro areas in the Gulf States continue to have poor air quality.
Why haven’t Kansas and Alabama — among other holdouts — expanded access to Medicaid?
Only 10 states have not joined the federal program that expands Medicaid to people who are still in the "coverage gap" for health care
Once praised, settlement to help sickened BP oil spill workers leaves most with nearly nothing
Thousands of ordinary people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick. A court settlement was supposed to help compensate them, but it hasn’t turned out as expected.
Q&A: How harm reduction can help mitigate the opioid crisis
Maia Szalavitz discusses harm reduction's effectiveness against drug addiction, how punitive policies can hurt people who need pain medication and more.
The Gulf States Newsroom is hiring a Community Engagement Producer
The Gulf States Newsroom is seeking a curious, creative and collaborative professional to work with our regional team to build up engaged journalism efforts.
Gambling bills face uncertain future in the Alabama legislature
This year looked to be different for lottery and gambling legislation, which has fallen short for years in the Alabama legislature. But this week, with only a handful of meeting days left, competing House and Senate proposals were sent to a conference committee to work out differences.
