Very High Energy Electrons for RadioTherapy (VHERAPY)

ended

Very High Energy Electrons (VHEE) as those produced by compact laser plasma accelerators are ideal candidate in radiotherapy (RT). The corresponding dose distribution of the already produced low divergence and quasi-monoenergetic electron beam portends significant potential to treat deep tissue tumors, due to VHEE’s narrow radial dose deposition profile and long penetration distance. Our technological breakthrough is creating VHEE beam suitable for radiation therapy with a single laser and in relatively small space. Therefore, we expect our discovery to enable smaller, simpler and cheaper RT machinery with superior therapy performance. This will bring added value to RT device manufacturers and operators. Our approach substantially reduces the size of the acceleration complex leading to significantly smaller footprint, and investments in such facilities. We also enable increasing patient throughput while facilitating lower radiation protection requirements. The approach is safer for patients – for instance, our numerical studies of dose deposition in cases of prostate cancer indicate that VHEE reduces 20% of the ionizing radiation in healthy tissues. Moreover, obesity makes cancer treatment more difficult and adverse side effects more common, for which VHEE-RT represents an efficient and economically pertinent solution. In addition to increasing the technology maturity in this PoC, we will study and prepare commercialization plans of the approach and variety of VHEE-RT components. Moreover, we will carry out IP protection and networking tasks with collaborators, potential customers and investors for improving our chances of commercialization success.