Speaker
Description
According to the World Health Organization, cancer is the second leading cause of death globally, right after cardiovascular diseases. Thus, there is a great interest in the continuous study of this disease, not only aiming at an earlier diagnosis but at more effective treatment options.
This project focuses on radiotherapy, a treatment option commonly considered for tumour treatment in which the tumour cells are targeted with ionizing radiation, damaging the cancer cells and eventually leading to their death. Due to its ionizing effects, radiotherapy may also induce serious toxicity effects in the patients and drastically affect their quality of life. In this context, Flash radiotherapy has shown promising results since multiple pre-clinical studies have shown that the delivery of radiation at significantly greater dose rates than the ones conventionally considered, may lead to a reduction in the toxicity effects induced in the surrounding healthy cells, while maintaining an effective tumour control.
The present work will provide a first overview of my Master’s dissertation topic, which will focus on the implementation of a multi-beam treatment planning for Flash therapy using protons.
