Each year in France, 350,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed*.

Only about half of these can be cured with the therapeutic arsenal now at our disposal, namely surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

In this situation, the advent of a new form of radiotherapy, known as ‘hadrontherapy’, represents a fresh opening. Initial clinical trials have shown some promising results, especially in the case of cancers that today remain incurable or inoperable.

Before this innovative method of treatment can be extended, however, we still have some questions to answer: which tumours and which patients is this treatment suitable for? And under what conditions are they implemented?

The ARCHADE European Hadrontherapy Research Centre has been set up with this in mind. It will be the first centre in the world devoted exclusively to research in this field.

Project ARCHADE is an integral part of cancer treatment, for to understand hadrontherapy today is to be able to improve the cancer treatment of tomorrow.

* Source: Institut National de Veille Sanitaire, 2010.