Trying to head off expensive competition for a costly new technology, Michigan's Certificate of Need Commission voted unanimously today to bring a new high-tech cancer radiation treatment to the state through a shared arrangement by participating hospitals.

The commission also set strict deadlines to ensure the project isn't slowed by the consortium approach, a contention of Beaumont Hospital.

Beaumont wants to form a partnership with a Bloomington, Ind., firm to build a $159-million proton beam facility on its Royal Oak campus.

Proton beam therapy is a type of cancer treatment that delivers varying doses of radiation with the biggest burst at the tumor site and the least on the skin's surface. It promises to reduce radiation complications and can be used to treat recurrent cancer, which standard photon radiation cannot.

But the facilities are costly and could cause what Dr. Jack Ruckdeschel, chief operating officer of the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit and a proponent of the consortium approach, called a possible arms race for the new technology. Opponents, which include the Economic Alliance of Michigan, a business and labor coalition representing the state's automakers and largest unions, also say that further studies are needed to find out whether proton beam therapy is better than current treatments, with fewer side effects.

Hospitals that see more than 30,000 cancer radiation patients yearly that are interested in joining the proton beam consortium have until early June to report on how they would jointly finance a proton beam facility.

Then by September, they would have to provide the commission with a proposed business plan, a time line, financing details, and plans to purchase a site for the facility. The Henry Ford, Karmanos, Trinity, Ascension, and University of Michigan health systems favor the collaborative approach.

Beaumont's proposal called for the hospital to pay $13 million of the facility's cost, with the rest paid by ProCure Treatment Centers, Inc.

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last updated: 05/06/08

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