October 15, 2014

Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. (President and CEO: Shunsuke Betsukawa; hereinafter referred to as “SHI”) today announces that clinical treatment started at Aizawa Hospital (Chairman and Director: Takao Aizawa; hereinafter referred to as “Aizawa”) in Matsumoto, Nagano Pref. on September 30, 2014 as the first proton therapy facility in Koshinetsu region. (10 patients were treated per a day on October 6.)

This proton therapy system has a single gantry treatment room in the world's first vertical arrangement with a short length compact gantry and a 230Mev cyclotron which enables significant space saving. This system incorporates Multi-purpose nozzle which enables either conventional broad beam or pencil beam scanning, depending on treatment planning for a targeted disease. Furthermore, accurate patient positioning by 2D & 3D image guidance　is possible.

(*) Attendee of Opening Ceremony
From Center to Right
Takao Aizawa, M.D. (Chairman and Director, Aizawa Hospital)
Katsunori Tauchi, M.D. (Deputy Director, Aizawa Hospital)
Masayuki Araya, M.D. (Division Head, Proton Therapy Center, Aizawa Hospital)
From Center to Left
Kazuhiro Hongo, M.D. (Director ,Shinshu University Hospital)
Hiroshi Onishi, M.D. (Professor, Department of Radiology, University of Yamanashi)
Kazuto Kaneshige (Director, Senior Vice President, Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd.)


Proton therapy is a kind of radiotherapy based on accelerating protons, which are the nuclei of hydrogen atoms, to high energy level before irradiation and concentrating dose on cancer cells. Since healthy tissues in the vicinity of the cancer cells are not negatively affected, it is possible to provide therapy with few side effects. Unlike surgical procedures, this is a gentle and less impact treatment that allows patients to be treated as outpatients and for this reason it is attracting attention around the world.


- About Aizawa Hospital
Aizawa Hospital (502 beds) is a private hospital located in Matsumoto, Nagano Pref. ,Japan, which has over 100 years history, and has been designated as a regional cancer treatment center and regional medical support facility, providing acute medical service as a regional core hospital. The proton therapy facility was built beside Aizawa Comprehensive Cancer Center and it is expected to play a big role in multidisciplinary cancer treatment combined with X-ray radiotherapy, surgery and chemotherapy.

- About SHI
SHI delivered the first proton therapy system in 1997 to National Cancer Center Hospital East, which was the first hospital-based proton therapy facility in Japan and the second in the world. The facility has kept stable operation over 15 years. Since then, SHI has received orders from Chang Gung Memorial hospital in Taiwan, Aizawa hospital, Samsung Medical Center in Korea and Social Medical Corporation TEISHINKAI in Japan. SHI will continue to contribute towards the wide use of proton beam therapy for cancer treatment around the world, in collaboration with the customers.