Proton therapy is currently provided only within large, dedicated facilities, typically costing more than $30 million to well over $100 million to establish. At this time there under 30 such facilities worldwide, with six operational in the United States and one treating only ocular malignancies.
Most cancer centers would prefer a scalable approach to the current alternatives that require three or more treatment rooms in order to make implementation of proton therapy an economically viable endeavor. The CPAC solution not only will be economical for a single treatment room, but also compelling for multi-room facilities. This modular method of adoption allows the CPAC proton therapy system to more naturally match the way in which cancer centers, payors, and patients adopt a new treatment modality.
Our philosophy is that new treatment modalities should offer better treatment quality for patients, make clinicians’ work easier, offer a good return for providers, and reduce overall expenses for payors and the whole health care system. This is a sustainable model of health care innovation, and we believe that CPAC’s proton therapy solution will satisfy these sometimes competing needs.
The CPAC Story
CPAC’s technology was born out of work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). We identified the DWA as the ideal accelerator to power a next-generation cancer therapy system. CPAC now holds the exclusive rights to more than 30 DWA-related patents or patent applications. After initial project work within TomoTherapy, CPAC was formed and spun out of TomoTherapy in order to focus and accelerate the development.
CPAC’s first product will be a compact intensity-modulated proton therapy system for treating cancer and other solid tumors. While the DWA is designed to be adaptable for any type of particle therapy, the initial application is with protons because of their substantial acceptance as a potentially superior alternative to conventional photon-based radiotherapy.
The CPAC Solution
Intensity Modulation
To realize the potential of proton therapy, we believe that proton therapy should be delivered with intensity-modulation. There are highly sophisticated methods of delivering photon therapy and to consistently improve on the quality of those delivery methods with proton therapy, intensity modulation is critical. The costs of acquiring a proton therapy system can be substantial, and we believe that those costs should yield better treatment results.
As the treatment plan comparison below demonstrates, scattered proton beams and even spot scanning can have difficulty in replicating the dose homogeneity and conformality of a good-quality photon plans. It is only intensity-modulated proton therapy that improves on the overall quality of the conventional proton therapy plan.
From left to right: IMRT; conventional protons; spot scanning protons; IMPT.
CPAC’s proton therapy systems will provide intensity modulation as a standard part of every system. The superior ability of the CPAC proton therapy system to control proton beams means that clinicians should be able to deliver compelling results. Below are a few sample treatment plans demonstrating the potential results of a CPAC intensity-modulated proton therapy treatment:
Integration
We understand that moving to proton therapy will be difficult for many cancer centers. That is why we intend our product to be fully integrated with the host of features that others will make optional or will require you to obtain from other vendors. Each system will come completely integrated with a treatment planning system, quality assurance software and tools, volumetric CT imaging, beam delivery, patient positioning, and advanced adaptive functionality. This full suite of features will enable centers to implement proton therapy in a straightforward and intuitive fashion. After all, better treatments should not require more work for clinicians.
Quality
Proton therapy holds the potential to render better treatments to patients. Neutron contamination, however, can limit the quality of proton therapy treatments. Neutrons are unwanted and unneeded dose that is a byproduct proton therapy treatments. Whether the amount of neutron contamination is clinically relevant depends upon the particular implementation of the proton therapy system. CPAC’s proton therapy system is designed to eliminate all possible neutron dose. We believe that our system will generate fewer neutrons than any other system available. This translates to less unnecessary dose being delivered to healthy tissue, lower shielding and maintenance costs for facilities, and reduced exposure for health care providers and staff.
