Proton Therapy — the best noninvasive cancer treatment available

Proton Knife provides operational and oncological consulting services to Proton Therapy Centers worldwide.

About

For over 20 years, Dr. Les Yonemoto has participated in the systemization of multiple proton centers with clinical, operational and business development responsibilities including completed projects in Japan, Germany, California, Florida, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington as well as many more that are under development.
Dr. Yonemoto has also consulted for over a decade with equipment servicers and vendors including Optivus and Hitachi often influencing many of their designs and implementations. Proton Knife was founded in 2009 by Dr. Yonemoto, in order to provide proton center developers, operators and clinicians with best practices based on his working knowledge of all aspects of the proton therapy center business. More recently he has brought his expertise to use at the ProCure Proton Therapy Centers.

Leadership

Les Yonemoto

Les Yonemoto Chairman

Having earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, being an Electrical Engineer for Motorola's Integrated Circuits Division in Phoenix, attaining an MBA from Arizona State University and a MD from John Hopkins, Dr. Yonemoto brought a unique perspective to Loma Linda University Medical Center's Radiation Medicine facility in 1992. As a Radiation Oncologist he utilized his engineering and business background to develop procedures and processes at Loma Linda to improve safety and quadruple their patient volume resulting in a financial model used to justify subsequent development of multiple hospital associated proton therapy centers.

Working as a consultant and practicing Radiation Oncologist, Dr. Yonemoto is a key developer of proton therapy technology, treatment protocols, procedures, business plans and proformas for proton center projects throughout the world. He is uniquely qualified and singularly experienced as a leading pioneer of proton therapy and the development of multiple proton therapy centers.

“The Hippocratic oath says to do no harm. Proton therapy is one of the most straight forward and logical methods to do that. It makes sense to harm less normal tissue that doesn’t have cancer.”

- Les Yonemoto (News OK)

Proton Therapy

Overview

Proton therapy is a highly advanced, very specific form of radiation therapy which uses a powerful particle accelerator to speed up billions of protons from hydrogen atoms (stripped of their electrons) to near the speed of light in order to precisely target and kill the cancerous tumors throughout the body. The protons heavy mass, high speed and positive charge allows them to penetrate into a patient's body precisely at any given point and - thanks to the Bragg Peak - stop at the precise target location thus resulting in little to no radiation past the target location. Proton therapy is a proven, FDA cleared and Medicare reimbursed, outpatient therapy that, since 1954, has been effectively used to treat over 150,000 cancer patients worldwide.

Advantages

Proton therapy can provide a highly focused, precise and specifically directed tumor killing dose placement with less damage to normal tissue. With reduced normal tissue damage physicians can prescribe higher doses to tumors with a goal of a higher control of the cancer. When cancer is eradicated before it spreads, it reduces the need for additional therapies and the overall healthcare costs are reduced due to reductions in ongoing treatments and in treating side effects. Proton therapy can improve patient survival rates, treatment experience and quality of life.

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