West Chicago proton therapy project still stalled

Officials for the Northern Illinois Proton Treatment and Research Center announced Monday that this week's deadline to complete the project won't be met. Not by a long shot.

The lagging economy is being blamed for the $160 million cancer therapy project's stall. Cherilyn Murer, the chairwoman of the center's board of directors, touted the infrastructural work that has been accomplished at the site in West Chicago's DuPage Technology Park off Roosevelt Road. However, the work there amounts to only a fraction of what was necessary to comply with state medical facility construction requirements.

Murer said the group will have to reapply to the Health Facilities and Services Review Board, the state's new nine-member medical construction oversight commission that replaced the much-maligned Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. Murer did not indicate when the group, which has been aligned with Northern Illinois University, would be reapplying to the state.

The project has been plagued by funding problems for more than a year. Financial matters weren't helped when the state planning board approved construction of a neighboring proton therapy center to be built in Warrenville by Central DuPage Hospital and ProCure Treatment Centers. That project is on schedule to be completed early next year.

Proton therapy is seen as a healthier cancer treatment. Instead of traditional cancer treatment that subjects a patient's entire body to radiation doses, proton therapy uses concentrated doses of radiation to afflicted areas. Research indicates proton therapy cuts down on debilitating side effects and is more successful with younger cancer patients.

There are less than a dozen proton treatment centers operating currently in the U.S. , partly because of the costly and massive "cyclotrons" needed to be built for the therapy centers.