images from the radiation treatment...

in order to protect the rest of the head and to fix the head in general a mask is created for each patient. the process of creating the mask was done in about 10 minutes which seemed very fast to me. the 'thing' at the bottom of the picture is a little pad which is inserted in ones mouth to futher fix the mask.


while wearing the mask the patient takes a seat in this special chair. the mask is firmly fixed to the back of the chair, making movement of the patient impossible. by bitting onto the pad further fixation is accomplished.


to ensure optimal results the patient focuses a little red led on the above board. while staring at the led the protons are fired into the eye thereby destroying and stopping the tumor. the success rate is very high, >95%.

(all images copyright psi, switzerland)

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i had four treatment days. the actual proton beam radiation only takes about 20 seconds per day, so in total that's only about 80-90 seconds.

this machine like the complete psi seems like one big miracle to me.

thank you to everybody at the psi.

-pj