Compact Systems for Effective and Precise Brachytherapy

APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY:

Direct proton irradiation of breast, prostrate, and other tumors between 5 and 10 mm in diameter

ADVANTAGES:
Compact and portable: ~ 4 cm in diameter x 13 cm long Delivers 15 MeV protons at 6 x 107 H+/second without a radioactive source Designed to localize the radiation dose to minimize healthy tissue damage Expected to be effective at treating low energy gamma-radiation resistant tumors DESCRIPTION:

Ka-Ngo Leung, Sami Hahto and Tak Lou from Berkeley Lab have developed a miniature proton brachytherapy system designed to precisely deliver short range, high energy (15 MeV) proton radiation directly to the site of a small tumor with minimal damage to healthy tissue.Proton brachytherapy is preferable to neutron brachytherapy for treating small tumors because protons don’t travel as far in the body as neutrons. Proton brachytherapy offers the highest tumor-dose to heavy-tissue-dose ratio of any brachytherapy method.

Until now, proton brachytherapy has only been performed using large proton accelerators that produce ~ 200 MeV protons for external radiation therapy. External proton therapy can deliver radiation precisely to a tumor site but healthy tissue is also damaged by the high energy protons. The tumor typically has to be irradiated from several angles to reduce healthy tissue dose.

The Berkeley Lab device is designed to produce 3He ions in a plasma chamber and then extract a 3He ion beam. It accelerates the beam down a thin hollow tube to hit a deuteron-bearing target. 15 MeV protons are produced and escape isotropically, reaching cells within a 2.5 mm radius around the generator target.

Inventor(s): Ka-Ngo Leung, Sami Hahto and Tak Lou

Type of Offer: Licensing



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