Maryland Proton Treatment Center
The Maryland Proton Treatment Center is now accepting appointments for patient consultations. Please call 410-369-5200 for more information or to schedule a consultation.
The Maryland Proton Treatment Center (MPTC) offers proton therapy – a highly advanced and precise form of radiation therapy that can increase radiation dose to tumor while decreasing dose to healthy, surrounding tissue – to the Baltimore/Washington region and beyond.
It is estimated that as many as 30 percent of patients who need radiation as part of their course of cancer treatment could benefit from proton therapy.
Proton therapy is a highly effective treatment for a wide range of localized tumors such as those found in the brain, base of the skull, head and neck area, eye, esophagus, lung, prostate, liver, breast and spinal cord, as well as gastrointestinal malignancies. It is also an important treatment option for children with cancer.
Proton beam radiation is different from traditional, X-ray radiation. In proton therapy, the radiation dose stops at the tumor site. This form of radiation treatment is very precise. At MPTC, treatment rooms are equipped with the most advanced form of "pencil beam" proton therapy. This technology allows the proton beam, with pencil point accuracy, to "paint" the tumor with radiation, layer-by-layer, in three dimensions. This extreme accuracy reduces radiation dose exposure to the surrounding healthy tissue, thereby reducing side effects and preventing damage to critical organs such as the heart, lungs, brain, spinal cord, liver, intestine, bladder or rectum.
Proton therapy is performed on an outpatient basis, and is a well-tolerated, noninvasive treatment that can reduce side effects. It can be used as part of a treatment plan that includes other cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and surgery.
One of the goals of MPTC is to remain cost-neutral to insurance providers, meaning that patients pay the same for proton treatment as they would for other more conventionally available intensity-modulated treatments at the University of Maryland.
MPTC, a more than $200 million collaborative health care project, is housed in an 110,000-square-foot building in the University of Maryland BioPark on the campus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore. The center is one of fewer than 20 proton treatment center in the United States and the only one in the Baltimore-Washington region. MPTC is also one of a handful of proton therapy centers to have a fully integrated system of volumetrically image-guided proton therapy (IGPT) and intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT).
Proton Therapy Patient Success Stories
Read the stories of patients who have experienced proton therapy at MPTC firsthand.
