Dr. Tim Williams, Medical Director of SFPTI says, “South Florida Proton Therapy Institute (SFPTI), is a full-service oncology treatment center. We have the complete complement of radiation devices for the use of cancer therapy.”
Dr. Scott Gasiorek, Associate Director of SFPTI says “We treat various forms of cancer: we have standard X-ray radiation and we have the newest technology proton beam radiation.”
Dr. Williams continues “They both are very useful for cancer patients and depending on the type of tumor you have and its location inside your body, we might use one or the other. Proton therapy is very useful if you have some target volume or some cancer inside of your body and it sits right next to some normal tissue that’s really critical like your stomach or your brain tissue, or something like that. Protons allow you to treat the cancer itself and not have any dose scatter over to that critical normal tissue. There are certain applications where you need x-rays as opposed to protons”
Dr. Gasiorek chimes in to say: “We collaborate or work with our dosimetry physics department to decide how are we going to approach the disease. We have these magnificent radiation beams where we determine how:
- How are we going to aim them?
- What size?
- What dose are we going to deliver?”
Dr. Williams says, “People come from all over for ‘the protons’ that’s widely seen on internet searches when anybody is looking for possible treatments for cancer and most of the academic centers will have proton machines. We’re one of the few community centers that has it available.”
Gasiorek picks up to say: “Fortunately, here in South Florida, South Florida Proton Therapy Institute is one of the few facilities that can offer proton therapy to our patients.”
Dr. Williams concludes by saying “The communities have been extremely supportive of it. And as a community resource, there’s nothing really like it.”
If you are interested in finding out more about proton beam radiation or want to learn more about our cancer treatment center, contact us today.
