Mumbai, 15 August 2025

 

The Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) National Hadron Beam Therapy Facility at AC-TREC was dedicated to the nation by the Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi on 11th May 2023. This is a state-of-the-art facility with three-patient treatment rooms having 360 degree rotation gantries incorporated with the latest Pencil Beam Scanning (PBS) technology capable of delivering Intensity Modulated Proton Ther-apy (IMPT) located at the Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. In the last two years, 541 patients received treatment at the TMC proton therapy facility at ACTREC since it started ser-vices on 15th August 2023. This was informed by Dr. Siddhartha Laskar, Deputy Director, Academics & In-Charge, TMC Proton Therapy Centre. 

While 65% patients were in the general category getting subsidized cost benefits, 27% patients (146 in number) of them were treated completely free of cost or sup-ported by the funds raised by the hospital through “Patient Welfare Funds” or “Cor-porate Social Responsibility (CSR)” initiatives, further informed Dr. Laskar. There were 86 patients (16%) who were in the pediatric age group. Majority of the patients treated included and CNS tumors (38%) & Bone tumors (23%) followed by Head & Neck tumors (19%), Pediatric tumors, Gynecological, Breast, Prostate and Gastroin-testinal tumors. All patients treated at the centre till now have been thoroughly scru-tinized by specialist treatment groups to ensure maximum advantage with proton therapy and completed their treatment with minimal side effects.

The centre also has the facility to treat very young children under anesthesia and has a special play area for children undergoing treatment. A voluntary patient sup-port group called “Prerak” for patients undergoing Proton Therapy has been formed to facilitate mutual support, interaction and information-sharing amongst patients. Most patients are provided accommodation within the ACTREC campus at a very nominal charge.    

The TMC Proton Therapy Facility has catered to patients from all parts of the country. Majority (52%) were from the western region, followed by eastern region (23%), northern region (14%), southern region (6%), and central region (4%). International patients comprised 1% of the patients treated. 

Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, Director ACTREC, commented that TMC has already initiated a few in-house research projects directed at generating high quality scientific evi-dence to better define the use of particle therapy for various indications both in adults & children. Research involving assessment of technology and biology has also been initiated in collaboration between scientists, physicists and technologists from Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). “We also plan to undertake research activities related to development of more efficient & cost effective solutions in the future”, stated Dr. Chaturvedi.  

TMC has been able to achieve this in collaboration with IBA (Ion Beam Applica-tions) Belgium who are currently leaders in high quality proton therapy equipments    worldwide. IBA not only holds the distinction of sharing more than 50% of the global    market-share of proton therapy equipment, but also leads in terms of innovation & technology development. TMC & IBA have jointly embarked upon a practical train-ing program for up-skilling clinicians, physicists & technologists in proton therapy, the first of which is planned for September 2025.    

Dr. Sudeep Gupta, Director TMC, mentioned that the Proton Therapy Centre at AC-TREC is testament to TMC’s commitment to provide state-of-the-art cutting edge cancer treatment to all patients who need them, regardless of their ability to pay for the treatment.

TMC is an autonomous grant-in-aid institution administered under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Government of India.

 

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PIB Mumbai | Sriyanka Chatterjee/Darshana Rane

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