Cancer treatment is one of the most intricate challenges of contemporary medicine. One complication that often arises is the trial and error prescription of drugs that are often ineffective against a given type of tumour or for a particular patient. Moreover, these treatments often produce exhausting side effects.
The ability to identify the type of tumour and develop targeted treatment unique to each patient can dramatically increase both their survival rate and quality of life. This approach to treating patients based on individual characteristics is called precision medicine.
A recent initiative by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and MEDTEQ, a major Canadian medical technology organization, aims to integrate current treatment methods like immunotherapy and chemotherapy, precision medicine principles, and artificial intelligence to achieve a personalized approach to cancer treatment.
Researchers develop FLASH ultra-high-dose rate radiation therapy beam for cancer treatment
A joint team of researchers from Radiation Oncology at Dartmouth s and Dartmouth-Hitchcock s Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC), Dartmouth Engineering, and Dartmouth-Hitchcock s Department of Surgery have developed a method to convert a standard linear accelerator (LINAC), used for delivery of radiation therapy cancer treatment, to a FLASH ultra-high-dose rate radiation therapy beam. The work, entitled Electron FLASH Delivery at Treatment Room Isocenter for Efficient Reversible Conversion of a Clinical LINAC, is newly published online in the
International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology & Physics.
The exceptionally high dose rate is 3,000 times higher than normal therapy treatment (300 Gray per second vs. 0.1 Gray per second, Gray being a standard unit measuring absorbed radiation). Instead of treatment over 20 seconds, an entire treatment is completed in 6 milliseconds, giving the
A joint team of researchers from Radiation Oncology at Dartmouth’s and Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC), Dartmouth Engineering, and Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Department of Surgery have developed a method to convert a standard linear accelerator (LINAC), used for delivery of radiation therapy cancer treatment, to a FLASH ultra-high-dose rate radiation therapy beam. The work, entitled “Electron FLASH Delivery at Treatment Room Isocenter for Efficient Reversible Conversion of a Clinical LINAC,” is newly published online in
International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology & Physics.
The exceptionally high dose rate is 3,000 times higher than normal therapy treatment (300 Gray per second vs. 0.1 Gray per second, Gray being a standard unit measuring absorbed radiation). Instead of treatment over 20 seconds, an entire treatment is completed in 6 milliseconds, giving the therapy its nickname, “FLASH.” “These high dose rates have been shown to pro