Proton Beam Therapy

Protons in Manchester

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust together with our partners, Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust are working with the Department of Health to bring the UK's first high energy proton beam therapy service to Manchester.

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Proton beam therapy is a specialist form of radiotherapy which can very precisely target certain cancers, increasing success rates and reducing side-effects. Its introduction to the UK will bring the treatment closer to patients who currently have to travel abroad to receive it.

In autumn 2010, Manchester was chosen by the Department of Health to become one of the first areas to provide this cutting edge technology.

There are significant benefits of developing the service in Manchester:

Our current clinical provision

The Christie is the largest single-site cancer centre in Europe, seeing more than 40,000 patients a year.

Our radiotherapy department is one of the largest in the world. We already lead in advanced radiotherapy, delivering more complex treatments than any other centre in the country with 34 clinical oncologists delivering state-of-the-art care.

Our radiotherapy service is successfully integrated with our chemotherapy service (which is delivered across 10 sites), highly specialised surgery for complex cases, and a wide range of support and diagnostic services. 

We have well managed multi-disciplinary teams, fully integrated across specialist services and partner locations that cover all of the cancer types currently proposed for proton beam therapy.

Our ability to develop and implement the latest technology

The Christie has been at the forefront of modernising service delivery for patients requiring radiotherapy. Over the last century the Trust has pioneered many advances in radiotherapy, working with our industrial partners to develop and implement new techniques such as:

  • The first clinical use of multileaf collimation in theUK
  • The first clinical use of intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) in the UK
  • The first clinical use of image guidance radiotherapy (IGRT) worldwide

To date, The Christie has treated more patients with both intensity modulated and image guidance radiotherapy than any other trust in the country. A proton beam therapy service in Manchester will enable patients to be treated with the best possible choice of treatment.