
In 1946, founding Fermilab director Robert Wilson was one of the first to tout the benefits of proton therapy. The cancer treatment has since been lauded as a way to minimize damage to healthy tissue while focusing a finely calibrated beam directly on the tumor – an impossibility for radiation treatments based on X-rays or gamma rays. Yet protons were not used within a hospital facility until 1990 with Fermilab’s construction of a particle accelerator at Loma Linda University Medical Center. Since then, the industry has grown and the technology has evolved. Worldwide, 37 centers use proton therapy and more than 73,000 patients have been treated.