Proton therapy: a success story that started 25 years ago
Villigen, 25.11.2021 - On 25 November 1996, the Center for Proton Therapy at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI treated a cancer patient using the spot-scanning technique for the very first time – a world premiere. This technique developed at PSI scans and irradiates deep-seated tumours with a pencil-thin beam of charged particles, killing cancer cells with extreme precision while preserving the surrounding healthy tissue. Meanwhile this technique has become a standard procedure worldwide and since 1996 has been used to treat around 2000 cancer patients at PSI alone – over a third of them children and young people. The fact that the success story started at PSI was more than just a coincidence.