Speaker
Mr
Jeff Newell
(Varian Medical Systems)
Description
Radiation therapy is a very common, effective and cost-efficient method for cancer treatment. In many applications, however, clinicians could still benefit from a greater therapeutic ratio – maintaining or improving tumor control while reducing toxicity to nearby healthy tissues. Recent publications have shown that FLASH-RT, or ultrahigh dose rate radiation therapy, has shown promise in doing just this. In pre-clinical studies, researchers have shown that FLASH-RT is at least as effective as conventional radiation therapy in killing tumor cells while exhibiting improved sparing of healthy tissues in a variety of animal models including mice, cats, and mini-pigs. Unfortunately, the mechanism of action for the improved normal tissue sparing is not yet well-understood. In this talk I will summarize the recent pre-clinical research in FLASH-RT, summarize some of the hypothesized mechanisms of action for the FLASH effect and motivate the need for more research in this field.
Primary author
Mr
Jeff Newell
(Varian Medical Systems)
