The piéce de resistance is still a work in progress, but two-thirds of the only cancer center between Tampa and Miami that will use advanced radiation therapy is up and running.
Southwest Florida Proton, at the northwest corner of Estero and Three Oaks parkways, opened in December. For now, doctors are using conventional photon radiation therapy that has been used for decades in the U.S., said Dr. Arie Dosoretz, the brainchild behind Southwest Florida Proton.
“We’re treating 500 patients a day right now with photons at Advocate Radiation Oncology, so you know it’s a very effective treatment,” says Dosoretz, a managing partner at Advocate.
Dosoretz is aiming to have the advanced proton machine, built by Belgium-based IBA Proton Therapy, ready in the third or fourth quarter of this year.
Dosoretz returned to Southwest Florida in 2015 and was a co-founder of Advocate; his goal was to bring high-level cancer care to his hometown. He called proton therapy Southwest Florida’s missing cancer tool when construction began in early 2023.
“It’s the most advanced form of radiation therapy,” Ali Onuralp, vice president of sales in North America for IBA, said before the 2023 groundbreaking.
Proton therapy is more precise than photon therapy. It limits damage to good tissue because it can target only the tumor, and that precision means it also can be used for tumors near vital organs, such as the heart or brain.
Dosoretz will have lived with the project for five years by the time the proton machine is ready for patients. “I think what’s exciting for me is I’m one of the few people who gets to see this from start to finish,” he says. “It is like watching an epic movie unfold. Only I get to, at least in part, decide how the movie goes.”
He broke down the project into phases, to make the five-year timetable bearable. The first phase was the analysis, asking whether the project was feasible in Southwest Florida. Once the answer was yes, then it was finding a site and the vendor, IBA.
Onuralp said Dosoretz’s first call was unsolicited, and that Dosoretz had done his homework.
Dosoretz called phase two the planning and construction phase, which ended in December.
“There’s so many moving parts — between the engineers and the builders and IBA — to get a building of this complexity in the timeline that we had pre-defined, and to make sure we stuck to our game plan,” he says.
The third phase is going on now, installing and testing the complex proton machine known as Proteus One. The cancer center finishes its staffing during the phase.
“There’s a whole symphony of people working together,” Dosoretz says. “There’s clinical people, doctors, technicians, engineers.”
The center will have between 50 and 70 employees when finished, he said.
Phase two ended in dramatic fashion when the three sections of proton machine — the accelerator, compact gantry and counterweight — were lifted by a multistory crane and gently lowered through two holes in the roof into the three-story home for Proteus One.
The three pieces of equipment are gigantic. The accelerator weighs 55 tons (110,000 pounds); think a space shuttle. The compact gantry weighs 75 tons (150,000 pounds); think M1 Abrams tank. And the counterweight weighs 25 tons (50,000 pounds); think F-15 fighter jet.
Placing the gantry is especially tricky and time-consuming.
“The gantry can take a little while, because it sits on a chair that has support built into the wall and that requires us to be really precise, making sure everything is exactly level. We’re talking millimeter precision here,” says Keith Gatermann, the regional product manager in North and South America for IBA. He has seen the project through from its early stages.
IBA’s team of about 11 people will spend two to three months running and connecting cables after the machinery is placed in the special room. Once the cable work is done, the accelerator will be turned on and the subcomponents installed, and then the calibration starts.
Interest in the center is high, Dosoretz said: Cancer patients call up asking if they can be treated next week. All the doctors can do now is refer them elsewhere.
“I wish I had the machine up and running tomorrow,” Dosoretz says. The center will be transformative for the community, he said.
Some local businesses and individuals have shown interest in working with the center. For example, Lee Healthcare Holdings, a subsidiary of Lee Health, agreed last year to be an investor in the $80 million project. Lee Health also opened a diagnostic imaging suite there in December.
Dosoretz expects the proton center to be a magnet for recruiting specialized surgeons and other cancer doctors. The hospitality industry will get a boost, too. Dosoretz believes many patients will come from other parts of the state and country, and since proton therapy is not a one-and-done procedure — sometimes the treatment takes several days or weeks — those patients and their families will need places to stay, he said.
Proton therapy
Proton therapy beams protons to cancer cells through an accelerator. The protons are shot directly at the tumor, killing only the bad tissues and not damaging healthy tissue.
The advantage of proton therapy is it can be used near the brain, heart or other vital organs. It can also be used to treat tumors in the head and neck or skull base.
Proton therapy needs much larger equipment to beam out the protons. Photon therapy shoots out X-rays, which are not as precise.
Proton therapy lessens the chance for secondary cancers.
Source: IBA Proton Therapy, Johns Hopkins Medical
Southwest Florida Proton
Location: Northwest corner of Estero and Three Oaks parkways
Size: 35,000 square feet
Cost: Total project $80 million
Offering: The only cancer center between Tampa and Miami offering proton therapy
Opened: Photon therapy treatment and diagnostic imaging now being offered
Proteus One: The proton machine includes an accelerator weighing 55 tons, a compact gantry weighing 75 tons and a counterweight weighing 25 tons; cost between $20 million and $28 million.
Ready: The machine is expected be ready for service in the third or fourth quarter of 2025.
