GENEVA, Switzerland — Researchers at Europe’s science lab
CERN, who regularly use particle
physics to challenge our understanding of the universe, are also applying their
craft to upend the limits to cancer treatment.
اضافة اعلان
The physicists
here are working with giant particle accelerators in search of ways to expand
the reach of cancer radiation therapy, and take on hard-to-reach tumors that
would otherwise have been fatal.
In one CERN lab,
called CLEAR, facility coordinator Roberto Corsini stands next to a large,
linear particle accelerator consisting of a 40m metal beam with tubes packed in
aluminum foil at one end, and a vast array of measurement instruments and
protruding colorful wires and cables.
The research
here, he told AFP during a recent visit, is aimed at creating very high energy
beams of electrons that eventually could help to combat cancerous cells more
effectively.
They are
researching a “technology to accelerate electrons to the energies that are
needed to treat deep-seated tumors, which is above 100 million electron volts”
(MeV), Corsini explained.
The idea is to
use these very high energy electrons (VHEE) in combination with a new and
promising treatment method called FLASH. This method entails delivering the
radiation dose in a few hundred milliseconds, instead of minutes as is the
current approach.
This has been
shown to have the same destructive effect on the targeted tumor, but causes far
less damage to the surrounding healthy tissue.
With traditional
radiation therapy, “you do create some collateral damage,” said Benjamin Fisch,
a CERN knowledge transfer officer. The effect of the brief but intense FLASH treatment,
he told reporters, is to “reduce the toxicity to healthy tissue while still
properly damaging cancer cells.”
FLASH was first
used on patients in 2018, based on currently available medical linear
accelerators, linacs, that provide low-energy electron beams of around 6-10
MeV.
At such low
energy though, the beams cannot penetrate deeply, meaning the highly-effective
treatment has so far only been used on superficial tumors, found with skin
cancer.
But the CERN
physicists are now collaborating with the Lausanne University Hospital to build
a machine for FLASH delivery that can accelerate electrons to 100 to 200 MeV,
making it possible to use the method for much more hard-to-reach tumors.
“It is the ones
which we don’t cure at the moment which will be the targets,” Professor Jean
Bourhis, head of CHUV’s radiology department, told AFP.
“For those
particular cancers, which may be one third of the cancer cases, it could be a
game-changer.”
There are
particular hopes that the FLASH method, with its far less harmful impact on
surrounding tissue, could make it possible to go after tumors lodged in the
brain or near other vital organs.
Bourhis said it might not
relegate deaths from stubborn cancer tumors to the history books, “but at least
there will be a new opportunity for more cures, if it works.”
Read more Odd and Bizarre
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
