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New York City hospitals say they are moving closer to forming a consortium that would bring a proton beam therapy center to Manhattan.

New York - Under intense pressure to compete with cancer centers in other states, New York City hospitals say they are moving closer to forming a consortium that would bring a proton beam therapy center to Manhattan. The technology allows radiation to be emitted in precisely focused cancer-killing doses, but the cost of building and equipping such a facility in the city is astronomical—perhaps as much as $200 million.

Radiation oncologists say that if New York does not create a proton treatment center in or near Manhattan, local hospitals will lose cancer patients to nearby rivals. Next week, for example, Penn Medicine is holding a press event for the upcoming opening of its Roberts Proton Therapy Center, a $140 million radiation therapy facility in Philadelphia that it expects will draw patients from across the country.

“There is no question that this state needs a proton center,” said Dr. Jay Loeffler, chief of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, who was invited by New York health officials to brief them yesterday about proton therapy technology.

Mass General has one of the country’s oldest proton centers, and it was there that the late Sen. Edward Kennedy was treated for brain cancer.

“If you wait too long, you won’t need one,” said Dr. Loeffler, who notes that the new center in Philadelphia will be huge and will likely draw New York patients. “It’s sort of an arms race.”

At a presentation to Public Health Council committees Thursday, Dr. Simon Powell, Chair of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s department of radiation oncology, said that the hospital had been talking about a proton therapy center with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. But in recent months those discussions have expanded to include Continuum Health Partners, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine and possibly Yale University.

The consortium “has turned into a practical reality,” Dr. Powell said Thursday. “We’ve made great progress. We definitely can do this. There is a lot more work to do but we’ve set up a collaborative process.”

Dr. Louis Harrison, who heads Continuum’s cancer center, said there was “serious intent on all of our parts to make this work,” and described an “open, collaborative process” in which other institutions were welcomed to join.

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