[The study's co-senior author James M. Metz, MD] noted that other research teams have generated similar doses using electrons, which do not penetrate deep enough into the body to be clinically useful as a cancer treatment for internal tumors. Other groups have tried the approach with conventional photons, but currently available treatment devices do not have the ability to generate the necessary dosage. This study shows, that with technical modifications, the currently available accelerators for protons can achieve FLASH doses with the biologic effects today.
The key for the Penn team was the ability to generate the dose with protons, and even in that setting, researchers had to specially develop the tools needed to effectively and accurately measure radiation doses, since the standard detectors were quickly saturated due to the high levels of radiation. The Roberts Proton Therapy Center includes a dedicated research room to run experiments like these, allowing investigators to use photon and proton radiation side-by-side just feet from the clinic. It's one of the few facilities in the world with those unique features, and Metz said this infrastructure is what made Penn's FLASH experiments possible.
"We've been able to develop specialized systems in the research room to generate FLASH doses, demonstrate that we can control the proton beam, and perform a large number of experiments to help us understand the implications of FLASH radiation that we simply could not have done with a more traditional research setup," Metz said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @08:00AM
The machine, or the beam that comes from it, seems like the ultimate Brønsted-Lowry acid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @11:22AM (2 children)
In Soviet Russia cancer treatment radiates you!
Only takes 90 seconds, full body penetration guaranteed.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @11:51AM (1 child)
Or, in USA, everyone expects instant gratification -- cancer treatment at a kiosk in the mall.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 14 2020, @12:37PM
> in USA, everyone expects instant gratification
sniping aside:-
Note that there is some evidence that under FLASH regime, patient outcomes are better; there is less damage to healthy tissue for the same amount of damage on cancerous tissues. I don't believe there is a proper understanding of the mechanism by which this occurs.
Further, fast treatments can be very helpful for cancers that are on moving bits of body (e.g. lungs). It is highly challenging to force a beam to track a cancer that is moving during the treatment. A short pulse treatment can be very beneficial in this instance.
Finally, while throughput in treatment suites is primarily limited by preparation of the patient, the duration of the treatment is a thing. More people can be treated more easily with a shorter therapy.
All in all, FLASH is a good thing, if it is shown to work. It is quite the hot topic in hadron therapy, with a couple of consortia (at least) forming in UK and no doubt more elsewhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @02:13PM (2 children)
i suppose the "beams" are like etch a sketch?
probably it would be rather cool if one had a "mask" one could program like a pixel monitor that would either mask the beam to the picture obtained from the MRI -or- had a beam that is actually made from single beams in a say ... 64 x 64 matrix... okay 8 x 8. lets start slow and leave room to improve ... profits from suffering.
also there is no scientific proof for a aura or spirit. but maybe resting the patient in position for radiation therapy for 30 min before "treatment" allows all non scientific aspects of the human body to localize in a spot? just to be sure you're going to be doing the treatment on the whole uhm ... errr... entity.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 14 2020, @04:33PM (1 child)
> probably it would be rather cool if one had a "mask" one could program like a pixel monitor
For conventional (x-ray) radiotherapy they in fact have a motorised shield that does exactly what you propose. For proton therapy, indeed the beam scans across the tumour; and because hadrons have a relatively well-controlled depth at which energy is deposited, the scan can actually be 3-dimensional by tuning the proton energy.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:02PM
For more info read about the Bragg peak [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by nishi.b on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:16PM (1 child)
I wonder if this could improve the number of patients that could benefit from proton-therapy. There are very few machines available in the world compared to radiotherapy probably because of the cost an complexity, but it seems to be more precise and with less side effects than standard photon-based radiotherapy which diffuses part of the dose in the surrounding tissue.
If the treatment can be done much faster, maybe more patients could be treated by the same machine and lower the overall per-patient cost ?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:33PM
> ...lower the overall per-patient cost
Dreamer spotted!!