Advanced Oncotherapy Develops Measurement Unit For LIGHT System Beam

LONDON (Alliance News) - Advanced Oncotherapy PLC said Tuesday it has developed a measurement system, called Time-of-Flight, to measure the speed of the proton beam in its LIGHT system.

The cancer treatment developer said the LIGHT system controls electronically the fast delivery of protons to the tumour site, changing the amount of radiations quickly and minimising side-effects.

The measurement unit "allows the system to measure the energy of each proton pulse, which is a very important clinical parameter", the company said.

Jonathan Farr, director of Medical Physics at Advanced Oncotherapy, said: "Proton therapy is a high precision patient treatment. In proton therapy, the beam energy determines the depth of dose deposition in the patient."

"Because of the protons stopping in the patient's body during treatment, we would like to know the proton beam energy at the instant it is delivered. The new Advanced Oncotherapy Time-of-Flight on-line energy measurement feature gives us the ability to do just that."

Shares were trading 5.2% higher at 54.70 pence.