Deauville to Host the World Congress on Particle Therapy: Hadron Therapy

Interview with Professor Jean-Louis Habrand (Emeritus Professor of Radiation Oncology, University of Caen Normandy, Honorary Head of Department, François Baclesse Cancer Center)

Each year, the inter­na­tion­al med­ic­al and sci­entif­ic com­munity ded­ic­ated to radio­ther­apy with “heavy” particles (the “had­rons,” from the Greek had­ros: heavy, strong) holds its con­gress under the aus­pices of the PTCOG, a med­ic­al soci­ety that brings togeth­er research­ers, phys­i­cians, phys­i­cists, and industry stake­hold­ers involved in devel­op­ing this innov­at­ive can­cer therapy.

For its 2026 inter­na­tion­al edi­tion, this major sci­entif­ic event will take place at the Deau­ville Inter­na­tion­al Cen­ter (CID), in Nor­mandy. On this occa­sion, we met with Prof. Habrand, Pres­id­ent of the Loc­al Organ­iz­ing Com­mit­tee*, who has unveiled for us the sci­entif­ic, tech­no­lo­gic­al, and logist­ic­al chal­lenges of this excep­tion­al congress.

Why particle radiotherapy?

Foun­ded in 1985 in Boston (United States), the Particle Ther­apy Co-Oper­at­ive Group (PTCOG) has become the main inter­na­tion­al sci­entif­ic com­munity entirely ded­ic­ated to heavy-particle radio­ther­apy: pro­tons and heav­ier ions (car­bon, heli­um, etc.).

Bal­list­ic­ally super­i­or to con­ven­tion­al photon radio­ther­apy (using X‑rays), this approach makes it pos­sible to deliv­er high energy radi­ation beams with very high pre­ci­sion with­in the “tar­get” (i.e. the tumor), while drastic­ally lim­it­ing irra­di­ation of the sur­round­ing healthy tis­sues and there­fore lim­it­ing its fur­ther tox­icity. While major advances in con­ven­tion­al “photon” radio­ther­apy now allow it to achieve such object­ives for routinely treated tumors (of breast, pro­state…), pro­ton ther­apy tends to sup­plant it in the most com­plex situ­ations (eye tumors, pedi­at­ric tumors, and more gen­er­ally tumors in con­tact with highly “radi­o­sensit­ive” organs such as the optic path­ways, spin­al cord, etc.). There are cur­rently more than one hun­dred such cen­ters world­wide, includ­ing three in France: one of them, the CYCLHAD cen­ter, has been oper­a­tion­al in Caen since 2018, as part of a col­lab­or­a­tion with the François Bac­lesse Com­pre­hens­ive Can­cer Cen­ter. As for heav­ier ions, they offer an addi­tion­al and excep­tion­al fea­ture: increased “effect­ive­ness” on tumor bio­lo­gic­al tis­sues, which makes them attract­ive for the most “radiores­ist­ant” primar­ies (sar­co­mas, recur­rent tumors in pre­vi­ously irra­di­ated areas, and more gen­er­ally large tumors that can­not be sur­gic­ally removed). How­ever, because of their cost and the com­plex­ity of imple­ment­a­tion with­in giant accel­er­at­ors (syn­chro­tron-type), this tech­no­logy is cur­rently avail­able in only about fif­teen cen­ters world­wide (most of them in Japan, a few in Europe, and for the time being none in the United States… nor in France!).

Why Normandy?

The primary goal of this meet­ing in Deau­ville will be edu­ca­tion­al, with the first two days of teach­ing ses­sions open to all pro­fes­sion­als involved in onco­logy. For the first time, ded­ic­ated par­al­lel ses­sions are planned for para­med­ic staff. The sci­entif­ic part will fol­low over the next three days, focus­ing on recent thera­peut­ic advances through large clin­ic­al tri­als con­duc­ted world­wide, as well as more select­ive “pilot” stud­ies that, for example, com­bine had­ron ther­apy with oth­er treat­ments such as chemo­ther­apy, bio­lo­gic­ally “tar­geted” agents, or immun­o­ther­apy. New or under­ex­plored clin­ic­al indic­a­tions may also emerge from this con­gress. “For my part, I will be watch­ing very closely,” Prof. Habrand tells us, “the highly prom­ising work on car­bon ions by our Japan­ese col­leagues in a ter­ri­fy­ing con­di­tion, pan­cre­at­ic can­cer…” Par­al­lel ses­sions in radiobi­o­logy and med­ic­al phys­ics will also fea­ture prom­in­ently, of note the expert­ise of French teams is widely recog­nized, as evid­enced by the involve­ment of a pres­ti­gi­ous key­note speak­er and Nobel laur­eate in Phys­ics, Prof. Alain Aspect.

Finally, as the “icing on the cake”—and a key reas­on why our region­al com­munity was chosen to organ­ize this year’s event—the last day of the con­gress will be devoted to the vis­it of a highly innov­at­ive (cyclotron‑type) accel­er­at­or near­ing com­ple­tion, the “C400”. Numer­ous sci­entif­ic teams work­ing on the GANIL cam­pus in Caen have con­trib­uted to its devel­op­ment, togeth­er with the indus­tri­al group “Normandy‑Hadrontherapy.” Able to deliv­er high‑energy pro­tons and heavy ions in an excep­tion­ally com­pact format (due to its super­con­duct­ing design), such a facil­ity could in the future be hos­pit­al-based. Anoth­er anti­cip­ated advant­age of this device is its abil­ity to reach unusu­ally high dose rates (poten­tially exceed­ing one hun­dred Gray per second!), whose incred­ible spar­ing effects on an increas­ing num­ber of healthy organs exposed to radi­ations have been exper­i­ment­ally repor­ted; this form of radio­ther­apy already has a name: “FLASH” irra­di­ation. That day will of course include a vis­it to the Caen site (CYCLHAD Cen­ter). Com­mis­sion­ing for research and treat­ment is not expec­ted for anoth­er two years.

Why Deauville?

While the sci­entif­ic and med­ic­al agenda will bear the mark of the groups from Caen and from their nation­al and inter­na­tion­al coun­ter­parts, logist­ics will rely entirely on Deauville’s excep­tion­al host­ing capa­city. In view of 1,500 to 1,800 del­eg­ates, Deau­ville offers a hotel infra­struc­ture that is almost unique in the region and per­fectly suited to a large‑scale inter­na­tion­al event (to men­tion a few, G20 and the annu­al Amer­ic­an Film Fest­iv­al). The INDEAUVILLE depart­ment of the City Hall is also fully com­mit­ted and provides sup­ports to the highly qual­i­fied CID staff, who is in charge of man­aging cus­tom­ized “spaces”, such as the emblem­at­ic d’ORNANO Grand Aud­it­or­i­um (which acco­mod­ates around 1,500 attendees) not to men­tion smal­ler ones, along with numer­ous “par­al­lel” meet­ing rooms, as required by PTCOG this year. We should also men­tion the vast exhib­i­tion hall, which will host indus­tri­al exhib­it­ors. Finally, this event will be an oppor­tun­ity to share with the world our love of horses dur­ing the net­work­ing event at the Claire­fon­taine race­course, and our fond­ness for neatly aligned beach umbrel­las… whose image will adorn the “con­gress bags”!

With this con­gress, we hope that Nor­mandy will rein­force even fur­ther its image of a land of wel­come for a peace­ful World and for science.

*Com­posed of rep­res­ent­at­ives from the François Bac­lesse and CYCLHAD cen­ters, the Uni­ver­sity, and Caen‑la‑Mer. Action coordin­ated by the event group “KENES”

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