Your Care Path
At the Emory Proton Therapy Center, we hold our patients’ hands through the treatment process, ensuring the support necessary from consultation to graduation and beyond.
Schedule Your Consultation
If you have been diagnosed with cancer, one of our client experience coordinators will help determine if you are a candidate for proton therapy treatment and will help you through the process of scheduling a consultation with a physician or directing you to more appropriate options.
Consultation
During consultation, you will have an opportunity to meet with a radiation oncologist with expertise in your particular disease. We review your medical history, perform a physical exam, decide if any additional tests are needed, discuss all radiation options that may be appropriate for your care, make recommendations, and answer questions.
Simulation
Prior to starting your treatment, you will undergo a “simulation” or a planning session. A CT simulation scan is an image of you obtained in the same position you will be in during treatment each day. These images are used to design your treatment plan and ensure the radiation is placed in the exact location intended. During this time, you may also be fitted with a custom-molded cushion and/or mask. After the simulation is complete, you will receive additional information about your treatment appointments.
Treatment Planning
Your physician will precisely map the target to receive radiation and define the normal tissues and organs that must be protected from radiation. Working closely with our team of medical physicists and medical dosimetrists, advanced software is used to develop the best, most precise radiation treatment plan for you.
It takes approximately 2 weeks after the simulation session to complete the treatment planning and quality assurance work before treatment can begin.
Daily Treatment
Proton treatment sessions are typically daily, Monday through Friday. Treatment duration may vary according to your treatment site, but are typically 30 minutes each day. The total duration or number of treatments depends on your diagnosis and other factors and will be discussed in consultation with your treating physician.
During your treatment course, you will be scheduled to meet once weekly with your care team who will monitor your progress and assist with any side effects that you might experience.
Graduation and Beyond
Your physician will talk with you about a long-term plan to determine how your cancer or tumor has responded to treatment. During your recommended schedule of return visits and tests, your doctor, coordinating with your other clinicians, will monitor for possible side effects of radiation, which occasionally show up after radiation is completed.
As part of your ongoing survivorship plan, the team also will recommend healthy behaviors, preventive measures, and information on resources and referrals to other care providers when appropriate.
Patient Stories
Stephen, a 36-year old father from Columbus, Georgia, is one of the almost 2000 patients who have been treated at the Emory Proton Therapy Center since it opened in December 2018. He completed six weeks of proton therapy to treat a brain tumor.
Dusty was diagnosed with prostate cancer, an uncontrolled growth of cells in the prostate gland. Upon further consultation and research, he was treated with proton therapy and is excited to see an advanced form of radiation therapy is available at the Emory Proton Therapy Center.
Proton therapy gave Zack his best shot at treating a spinal tumor that had come back. Zack was one of the first patients treated at the Emory Proton Therapy Center after it opened in 2018. The treatments, every weekday for six weeks, took less than one hour of his day and gave Zack the greatest odds of a long life with his wife and children.
Jill was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer and referred to Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. She needed surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. A team of Winship experts worked together to coordinate her care, including proton therapy at the Emory Proton Therapy Center. Jill credits her care team for having the expertise and the necessary tools to give her the best cancer care possible.
Tony was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2019 and sought care from experts at Emory Proton Therapy Center. He’s confident that the advanced radiation therapy gave him the best cancer treatment possible and says the comfort and care he got from Winship doctors and staff were unmatched. “There were many great solutions here in Atlanta, but the best to me was Emory Proton Therapy Center,” says Tony.
