Radiation Medicine Patient Registry, Loma Linda University Medical Center

For most cancers, long-term follow-up is the best measure of treatment effectiveness. The Department of Radiation Medicine at Loma Linda University Medical Center operates the James M. Slater, M.D., Proton Treatment and Research Center, the world's first hospital-based proton treatment facility. Patients have been treated at the Center since 1990. Radiation treatment has been expanded and refined since the Center's opening, and these changes have been based primarily on outcomes seen and evaluated in long-term follow-up. The Radiation Medicine Patient Registry (a multi-year database), which began as an IRB-approved study in 2003, including detailed follow-up of study data collected from 1990 and onward, is designed to track all medical information from patients treated with proton therapy and/or conventional X-ray therapy at Loma Linda University Medical Center. Information gathered from patients treated years or even decades ago helps to determine the most effective use of proton and conventional radiation in caring for patients with cancers and other diseases.