Reports

The report describes the activities of the Skandion Clinic 2015-2023 and presents facts without analysis. The aim is to stimulate discussion without prejudging the conclusions. Target groups are politicians and officials in the regions, as well as clinic management, professionals and other stakeholders in Swedish oncology.

Skandionkliniken 2015-2023: with history and a view to the future (2024).

Reference list

The report summarizes the most important results achieved in 2021 in the work to future-proof Swedish radiation therapy. Results that can be fully or partly attributed to the work in the project.

A future-proof radiation therapy

Radiation therapy is one of the cornerstones of modern cancer treatment and is the only curative treatment for a large proportion of patients, for example in head and neck cancer, childhood cancer and prostate cancer, and in combination with other modalities (mainly surgery and chemotherapy) in a further number of diagnoses.

Despite its importance and bright future prospects, there has been growing concern about the development of Swedish radiotherapy for many years. Scientific articles comparing research activity in the field in different countries have indicated that Sweden is lagging behind.

This report concludes that the development of competence in Swedish radiotherapy has not followed the general development in the field of cancer.

Swedish radiotherapy is losing ground

At present, there is a relatively large consensus that proton therapy is justified in the treatment of certain brain tumors in adults and in the radiotherapy of children. However, the state of knowledge for proton therapy in other diagnoses still needs to be developed, not least in light of the fact that there is a strong and collective opinion that proton therapy, compared to regular radiotherapy, can have advantages in a number of diagnoses and indications.

However, the question of which diagnoses, and for which indications, these advantages are greatest is still not clear. Skandionkliniken has therefore commissioned an expert in radiation therapy, Professor Björn Zackrisson from Umeå, to produce a report with the aim of obtaining a common understanding of the current state of knowledge. The idea is that the report will form a basis for developing proton therapy in Sweden.

Proton therapy today and tomorrow

Kjell Bergfeldt, Head of Operations, Skandion Clinic. Anna Pedersen, Lihme Research & Healthcare. 2019-02-27

The Skandion Clinic has developed a model for how research and development of proton therapy can be promoted. The report presents a number of concrete proposals for an infrastructure that can support clinical research at the clinic and within the Skandion collaboration.