{"id":17736,"date":"2026-06-25T14:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=17736"},"modified":"2026-06-25T14:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:32:18","slug":"stanfords-first-proton-therapy-patient-is-7-his-case-shows-why-the-treatment-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=17736","title":{"rendered":"Stanford\u2019s first proton therapy patient is 7. His case shows why the treatment matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen De La Torre, 7, is usually all smiles. But on a recent Wednesday at Stanford Medicine\u2019s cancer center in Palo Alto, the boy climbed resolutely into the chair of a first-of-its-kind treatment device, focused for the task ahead.<\/p>

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De La Torre had been diagnosed with an unusual form of cancer, a rare tumor attached to his brain stem. His hair, just an inch long, had begun to grow back after emergency surgeries and a course of radiation. Scars were still visible on his scalp.<\/p>\n

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Now, the boy prepared to sit still as a statue for a session of proton therapy. It\u2019s a less common type of radiation treatment \u2014 a beam of charged particles travels through the skin to deposit cancer-killing radiation in a tumor. For the treatment to be effective, De La Torre would have to be unmoving. As his family and doctors exited the room, the humming machine lowered a ring around his body. Behind him, hidden from view, was the world\u2019s smallest proton particle accelerator.<\/p>\n

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This month, De La Torre became the first patient treated with proton therapy in the Bay Area since the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Specialists say proton therapy is a precise tool that shrinks tumors while limiting side effects by sparing healthy parts of the body from harmful radiation. It\u2019s considered especially useful for children, who are sensitive to radiation, and others with tumors in hard-to-reach locations.<\/p>\n

Most cancer patients receive X-ray radiation. Though effective, X-rays enter the body and exit the other side, exposing healthy tissue and organs. But with protons, the radiation stops\u00a0at the tumor.<\/p>

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This form of radiation treatment has been used for decades, and is offered at about 50 U.S. centers and hospitals. But patients in the Bay Area have long had to travel hundreds of miles if their doctors recommended it.<\/p>\n

The new proton therapy device at Stanford also represents a technological breakthrough, experts said. Recent innovations have slashed the size of a proton system from as big as a three-story building to fitting in one room \u2014 a \u201cgame-changer,\u201d said Billy Loo, a Stanford Medicine radiation oncologist.<\/p>\n

Neither Stanford nor Mevion Medical Systems, a Massachusetts medical technology company that developed the new device, would disclose its cost, citing confidentiality agreements. But a spokesperson for Mevion said a similar project cost $33 million elsewhere \u2014 roughly one-tenth the cost of some other, larger proton systems.<\/p>\n

Mevion CEO Tina Yu said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the new device for use in clinical settings in 2025, and testing had solidified its effectiveness as a cancer treatment. Its use with patients at Stanford, she said, would be its first true application.<\/p>

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\u201cYou can do a lot of things on paper,\u201d Yu said. \u201cBut can you do it with a seven-year-old boy?\u201d<\/p>\n