CPAC Highlights Its Proton Therapy Program at ESTRO Annual Meeting

MADISON, Wis. – September 18, 2008 – Compact Particle Acceleration Corporation (CPAC) today announced that it introduced its state-of-the-art compact proton therapy program, featuring a dielectric-wall accelerator (DWA), during the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO) annual meeting that concluded today in Gothenburg, Sweden. The proton system is currently being co-developed by CPAC and TomoTherapy Incorporated (NASDAQ: TOMO), maker of the Hi·Art^® treatment system for advanced radiation therapy, and was featured in the TomoTherapy booth at ESTRO.

John Hughes, CPAC Vice President of Commercial Operations, led several of the presentations. Said Hughes, “We were overwhelmed by the interest and positive response we received for CPAC during the ESTRO annual meeting. Clearly, proton therapy is recognized as a promising treatment modality with the potential to deliver significant benefit for some cancer patients. Our approach has the potential to bring this technology into the medical mainstream.”

High cost and large facility requirements are current barriers to proton technology entering the medical mainstream for cancer treatment. Perfecting the DWA technology for eventual use in compact proton systems could greatly reduce the cost and space needed for this type of treatment. In fact, it is intended that the DWA will be mounted on a gantry much like TomoTherapy’s Hi·Art treatment system.

DWA technology was originally created as part of defense-related research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

Physicist George Caporaso, LLNL’s lead investigator on the collaboration with CPAC and TomoTherapy, gave a popular presentation at the ESTRO Presidential Symposium entitled, “A Compact Linac For Intensity Modulated Proton Therapy Based On A Dielectric Wall Accelerator.”

Caporaso explained, “Our researchers have demonstrated the ability to produce protons from an extremely compact source about the size of a dime. We believe that we are making important progress toward the development of this DWA source for eventual cancer therapy applications.”

CPAC will attend the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting in Boston, Mass., Sept. 21-25, 2008, joining TomoTherapy in booth 1533. Rock Mackie, Ph.D., TomoTherapy co-founder and chairman of the board, will deliver a series of proton therapy-related presentations. For exact times of Dr. Mackie’s talks, visit our ASTRO overview page.

In addition, Hughes will be leading a CPAC presentation during the TomoTherapy Analyst and Investor Presentation on Sept. 22, 2008.

About TomoTherapy Incorporated

TomoTherapy Incorporated develops, markets and sells advanced radiation therapy solutions that can be used to treat a wide variety of cancers, from the most common to the most complex. The ring gantry-based TomoTherapy^® platform combines integrated CT imaging with conformal radiation therapy to deliver sophisticated radiation treatments with speed and precision while reducing radiation exposure to surrounding healthy tissue. TomoTherapy’s suite of solutions include its flagship Hi·Art^® treatment system, which has been used to deliver more than three million CT-guided, helical intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatment fractions; the TomoHD^™ treatment system, designed to enable cancer centers to treat a broader patient population with a single device; and the TomoMobile^™ relocatable radiation therapy solution, designed to improve access and availability of state-of-the-art cancer care. TomoTherapy’s stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol TOMO. To learn more about TomoTherapy, please visit TomoTherapy.com.

18 Sep 2008

• Recent Company News
• Company News Archives