Rush-hour arrival of cancer weapon in Butler Co.

Attention drivers using Interstate 75 from Dayton south into Butler County during Wednesday’s rush hours: Count on the added thrill of huge trucks delivering a new cancer-fighting tool to the Liberty campus of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

A cyclotron, a machine that generates proton radiation therapy, will arrive in two pieces at the hospital, said spokeswoman Shannon Kettler. The German-made machine weighs more than 125 tons.

Kettler said the Ohio Department of Transportation is arranging escorts for the trucks. One is scheduled to arrive during the morning rush hour, the second in the afternoon, although Kettler said weather and other conditions could shift the arrivals.

Children’s Hospital is building a $120 million proton-therapy center at the Liberty Township campus, set to open in the winter of 2016-17. The center will have two treatment areas, or “gantries,” one for children and one for adults, which will be available through UC Health. A third gantry will be reserved for research, which Children’s officials say will be the only one in the world.

The contractors are Messer Construction of Cincinnati and Linbeck Group of Houston, which has experience building proton therapy facilities. The cyclotron was built by Varian Medical Systems of Germany. It arrived by ship at the port of Baltimore this month.

A special crane, itself weighing 800 tons, has been erected at the Liberty campus to lift the cyclotron’s pieces into place in the new facility.

Proton therapy is used to treat certain cancers and lymphomas. Its key advantage is the ability to deliver radiation precisely to a tumor, avoiding exposure to healthy tissue and reducing long-term side effects that can occur with conventional radiation therapy. The therapy can be used in up to 85 percent of pediatric tumors.