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The protons could replace X-rays in radiotherapy
(NC & T) The basic idea is to harness the ability to kill cells with protons (bare nuclei of hydrogen atoms) to kill cancer cells before they kill the patient. Worldwide, the use of radiation therapy depends now mainly X-ray emission, which kills cancer cells but can also harm many normal cells that are in its path.

The researchers, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his staff provide, and today they are creating, an atomic accelerator the size of a room, which cost much less than the proton beam accelerators existing firing subatomic particles in the tumor while minimizing damage to normal tissues surrounding it. They hope to have their first hospital system in service in late 2007.

Physicist Timothy Antaya, technical supervisor at the Center for Fusion and Plasma Science at MIT, was doomed intensely on the task of developing the new system, and is now working to make it happen. He argues that the proton “could change the primary method of radiation therapy” when the new machines are put into operation.

The main advantage of protons is that they are very energetic and this energy can also be controlled and less damage and collateral in normal tissues, compared with the powerful X-ray beams Protons enter the body through the skin and tissues, reach the tumor and stop there, minimizing other damage.

The protons are much more massive than the X-ray photons These tend to pass directly through the tissue and can damage normal living cells with which they encounter along their path. Side effects often include skin burns and other forms of tissue damage.

The new machines, in fact, should allow radiation specialists to deposit a larger amount of destructive energy into the tumor, but largely avoiding damage to surrounding normal tissues. This is expected to raise rates of tumor control while significantly reducing side effects.

Due to its high energy and precision of control, have been used in the past protons and anti-cancer bullets, with promising results.

Now, Antaya and his colleagues at MIT and the company Still River Systems Inc. think they can provide the new machine for less money than those designed first, making it take a moderately sized room in the hospital, and achieving better results than X-ray radiation

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