Nature Magazine’s Scientific Reports recently published the first success of our camera-based system for monitoring irradiation of cancerous head tumours. The setup was able to detect and quantify a dose shift of 1.5 mm, which is half the set safety margin. The study concludes that the system is sensitive enough to detect clinically relevant dose shifts in ion beam radiotherapy.
These results are the first published measurements done on our joint project with scientists from the German National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), DKFZ German Cancer Research Center, and the Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center (HIT) at University Hospital Heidelberg (UKHD). This application of Advacam technology in medicine could help limit the side effects of ion radiotherapy.
This new device, composed of 28 Timepix3 chips, could reduce the side effects of carbon ion beam radiotherapy and mitigate memory and optic nerve damage after the irradiation by reducing the overall irradiated volume of healthy brain tissue and allowing higher doses of radiation to be applied directly to the tumor.
