Mayo Clinic Jacksonville (Fla.) opened a $320 million cancer center, which will house the first carbon ion therapy program in the the Americas.
The 228,000-square-foot Duan Family Building opened June 11, according to a system news release. It will offer a range of cancer treatments, including photon therapy, immunotherapy and chimeric antigen receptor-T cell therapy, along with sophisticated imaging technology.
The system will add proton therapy in 2027 and carbon ion therapy in 2028. Carbon ion therapy is an advanced technology that delivers both carbon ions and protons to treat the same tumor, according to the release.
“Carbon ion therapy and other heavy particle therapies are the advanced radiation therapies of our future,” Cheryl Willman, MD, executive director of Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, said in the release. “When battling our patients’ complex, currently radioresistant cancers at Mayo Clinic, we need the advantage of these next-gen radiation tools, which can be fine-tuned to target and treat aggressive tumors while minimizing the impact to surrounding tissue.”
