Harlem Proton Center Celebrates Impressive Cancer Treating Milestone

HARLEM, NY — The New York Proton Center in Harlem celebrated the treatment of its 3,000th patient earlier this week.

The facility at 225 E. 126th St., established in partnership by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Montefiore Health System and Mount Sinai Health System, reached the milestone in under three and a half years, which is a record-setting growth pace as the only provider of proton therapy for cancer patients in New York.

“This milestone is evidence not only of proton therapy’s efficacy, but also of the high-quality care that our team provides,” said Jonathan Weinbach, Chief Executive Officer of the New York Proton Center, in a news release. “The immense growth NYPC has achieved in a short period of time speaks to the transformative impact of proton therapy for so many people."

You might be asking what exactly proton therapy is.

Proton therapy is a radiation treatment that delivers a beam of protons to disrupt and destroy tumor cells, opposed to the x-rays that other types of radiation treatment uses, according to John Hopkins Medicine.

Proton therapy has the ability to be more precise in its targeting of tumor cells than x-ray therapy, and also has milder side effects.

The treatment is not always available or possible for a patient, though, as there are still a limited number of proton therapy centers across the country, the process takes weeks to plan, and it can also be more expensive.

The New York Proton Center in Harlem has both treated the most patients in the shortest amount of any other center in the country, and also has 97 percent of its patients enrolled in clinical trials to help advance the science behind the process.

Ted Lelek of Fairfield, Connecticut, ended up being the center's 3,000th proton therapy patient.

"From the moment I first walked through the doors, it was evident that this is a state-of-the-art facility that is simply unmatched in its field," Lelek said in a news release.

You can find out more about the New York Proton Center in Harlem on its website.