Mevion Medical Systems announced today that the MEVION S250i Proton Therapy System® with HYPERSCAN® Pencil Beam Scanning (PBS) has received a Medical Device License from Health Canada, opening the door for commercial sales in Canada. The MEVION S250i is the only proton therapy system approved for use in Canada.

Proton therapy is a superior form of radiation therapy that can reduce the amount of unnecessary radiation exposure to surrounding healthy tissue and sensitive organs at risk. Mevion’s HYPERSCAN Pencil Beam Scanning improves on these benefits by utilizing an adaptive multi-leaf collimator to sharpen the beam and enable a more precise and conformal dose to the tumor than ever before.

“We are pleased to achieve this important milestone toward making our cutting-edge proton therapy technology available to clinicians and patients in Canada,” said James Meng, Ph.D., president of Mevion Medical Systems. “It demonstrates our dedication to take the lead and make proton therapy accessible around the world.”

A recent article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal estimates that in 2020, there will be 225,800 new cases of cancer in Canada. Many types of cancer can benefit from proton therapy, such as lung cancer (14% of all new cancer cases), breast cancer (25% of all new cancer cases in women) and prostate cancer (20% of all new cancer cases in men). Proton therapy can be especially beneficial to pediatric patients with cancers in the brain and central nervous systems, which according to the article, are the second most common cancer type, accounting for 19% of new pediatric cases.

The MEVION S250i received US FDA clearance and CE-Marking in 2017 and has been in use at leading cancer centers in the United States and Europe. Mevion’s pioneering single-room technology has allowed hospitals to successfully build and operate proton therapy centers due to its compact size, embedded clinical integration, and low-risk investment strategy. Today, new proton therapy centers in the United States are almost exclusively compact single-room systems. Mevion was the first company to innovate this new approach to proton therapy and have more systems installed and treating patients than any other compact proton therapy manufacturer in the US.

Source: Company Press Release