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Hong Kong hospital opens city’s first proton therapy centre offering more targeted treatment for cancer
- Treatment allows doctors to increase radiation to tumours with minimal effect on healthy tissue
- Costlier than traditional X-ray treatment, proton therapy is available at HK$293,100 to HK$613,400
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A private hospital has opened Hong Kong’s first proton therapy centre, offering cancer patients an alternative treatment promising higher precision and fewer side effects.
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The Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital (HKSH) said a woman with breast cancer was the first patient at its new centre in Shau Kei Wan last week.
Professor William Wong Wai-ling, guest consultant for the treatment, said proton beams minimised the dose of radiation to healthy tissues unaffected by cancer better than X-ray treatment – the most common type of radiation therapy.
“Proton beams penetrate the body to a certain depth. How far they go depends on their energy and then they stop,” he told the press last Tuesday.
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