West German Proton Therapy Center Essen (WPE) officially opened

02.05.2015 16:41

At a ceremony on April 20th, Svenja Schulze, North Rhine-Westphalia Minister for Innovation, Science and Research, officially opened the West German Proton Therapy Center Essen (WPE) in front of around 140 personalities from politics, business and medicine.

“The WPE is a center that is unique in Germany and Europe and at the same time represents the transformation of the Ruhr area into one of the leading medical locations in Germany. Accordingly, I am proud that together we managed to make such a groundbreaking project a success,” said Minister Schulze at today’s ceremony in Essen. “The WPE opens up new opportunities in our research focus on oncology and is already intensively involved in research projects and the training of young scientists,” added Prof. Dr. Ulrich Radtke, Rector of the University of Duisburg-Essen. To date, the Essen Proton Center team has treated around 200 patients.

All four treatment rooms should be in operation at the beginning of 2016, after which those responsible want to gradually increase the number of therapies to over 1,000 per year: “The expansion of the WPE and the number of patients treated are currently fully on schedule. So far we have been able to put a total of three treatment rooms into operation, in which we have the most modern form of proton therapy, the so-called 'pencil beam scanning'. With this, our doctors can 'trace' tumors bit by bit and thus irradiate them in the best possible way and protect the surrounding tissue as much as possible," says Prof. Dr. mult. Eckhard Nagel, Medical Director of the University Hospital Essen (UK Essen), at the official opening of the WPE. “What makes me particularly happy is that we have already treated over 100 children in a very short space of time. “It affects me to see how many children already have to fight with serious tumor diseases - and I am happy and grateful that we can provide them and their families with lasting help with this facility and our excellent experts,” Prof. Nagel continued .

Since mid-2013, the doctors have been treating under the medical direction of Prof. Dr. Beate Timmermann at the WPE patients with proton therapy, in March 2014 the UK Essen took over the center completely from the original construction and operating company. “Since then, we have focused on expanding our medical services and building up our teams,” explained Prof. Timmermann. “So far we have particularly treated patients with tumors in sensitive tissue regions such as the head, spine or pelvic area, which are difficult to treat otherwise. With the help of new planning technology, we can significantly expand the indications: For example, we can now: B. also irradiate tumors of the entire central nervous system. This is significant progress that can give new hope, especially to patients with difficult brain tumors,” explains the medical director of the WPE.