Speaker
Description
The treatment of cancers with particles is a superior modality compared to a treatment with X-rays. Particles are more effective and treatment is more localized, thereby sparing healthy tissues and reducing the risk of secondary tumors, resulting in an improved quality of life, as well as being the only radiation option for children and infants. Despite the clear advantages of particle therapy (PT) over X-rays, only around 10% of the patients that would benefit from PT has access to a treatment facility. The root cause of the limited availability of PT compared to X-rays is system-size and -cost. The single-room PT-system installation cost, including building, is 35 to 50 MUSD, compared to below 10 MUSD for an X-ray facility, while the cost of multi-room PT treatment facilities quickly becomes exorbitant.
The Compact Particle Therapy Development Initiative (Compact PT) was founded to address the size- and cost-issues of PT, by utilizing state-of-the-art high temperature superconductors (HTS) and unprecedented cryogen-free magnet designs. These technologies are used to create PT treatment-configurations that are size- and cost-competitive to X-ray machines, while retaining the same clinical treatment quality and options, as are available in the current, costly, and large, state-of-the-art PT treatment solutions.
In this presentation, we will provide an update on our current status and progress, and demonstrate how 360-degree rotating gantries can be achieved with radii below 2 meters for protons, and below 3 meters for carbon ions.
