Proton Therapy Center in Debrecen

The construction of a research and medical center for proton therapy may be the greatest investment of the following years in Debrecen, so the town can continue its strategy of developing value-added industries.

Lajos Kósa, Mayor of Debrecen, said that this investment of 30 billion FTs (together with the additional investments this sum can be the double) would be based upon the work and professional staff of the University of Debrecen and that of the Nuclear Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Science (ATOMKI).

Proton therapy against cancer

Proton therapy can be used for destroying injured tissue, usually tumors. Its advantage is that it can be more precisely targeted than other radiation therapy methods. On the other hand the procedure is extremely expensive. It can cost 11-12 million FTs, so it is twice as expensive as other methods.

Lajos Kósa pointed out that already in 1998 it became clear for the town leadership that the traditional industries inherited from the socialist era -, such as mill industry, house factory, meat industry and machine industry – cannot be maintained anymore. Instead, research and education based industries had to be brought to the town for reasons of „tradition, compulsion, and opportunity”.

Since then, thousands of new workplaces have been crated in the info-technology industry, instrument manufacturing and pharmaceutical industry. Another opportunity is to create the conditions for reimbursable medical care primarily for foreigners at the Medical and Health Center. Moreover, bilingual education is provided in many of the local secondary schools, which provide a firm basis for training professionals.

Also, the Mayor considers extremely important the fact that there are thousands of foreign students attending university in Debrecen; „It is very important to create conditions in which foreign students feel that they did not arrive to a desert. ” For this reason many improvements were made, mainly in the field of sport and culture, so that Debrecen could become a livable town. According to Lajos Kósa, the development of transportation is essential for economic growth, so the launch of scheduled air traffic in last year can be considered a milestone in the life of Debrecen.

Source: MTI