LONDON (Alliance News) - Advanced Oncotherapy PLC on Monday said a study of LIGHT system showed it was more efficient than common alternatives in proton therapy.
Proton therapy is a type of radiation therapy used to treat tumours and accelerators are used to direct the proton beam at the tumour.
The study compared LIGHT, Advanced Oncotherapy's proprietary proton accelerator, against conventional cyclotrons which use energy degraders. A cyclotron is a type of accelerator and energy degraders are commonly used to slow down the beam energy in these accelerators.
Analysis found that LIGHT had a transmission of more than 95% for all energies needed to treat patients, while the transmission of a conventional cyclotron with energy degraders was under 20% for an energy of 170 megaelectronvolts and under 50% for energy of 210 megaelectronvolts.
The analysis was based on measured data from the proton beam generated by the LIGHT accelerator in Geneva as well as from simulation tools.
Stephen Myers, executive chair of Advanced Oncotherapy subsidiary ADAM, said: "Usually, the patient needs lower speed than the cyclotron produces, so the protons must be slowed down by mechanically moving thick pieces of carbon into the proton beam, called the energy degrader. However, these degraders waste many of the protons in the slowing down process, demanding thick, expensive radiation shielding and reducing the number of protons available for the patient's treatment.
"This study shows how fundamentally different the LIGHT system is. Instead of accelerating protons in a spiral, LIGHT speeds up the protons in a straight line. This design results in a much higher transmission, and this opens up a myriad of benefits for patients and customers."
In addition, there is evidence that the LIGHT system could be used in a new radiation treatment technique called FLASH, in which the entire treatment is given extremely quickly - less than half a second. While conventional proton accelerators can produce FLASH when protons are accelerated to maximum energy, the dose rate is significantly less at lower energy because of energy degraders.
Advanced Oncotherapy scientists have produced FLASH estimates based on the LIGHT system, which indicated that the LIGHT system is intended to be used with FLASH and could be more suited to this new treatment because it performs equally as well at different energies.
Chief Executive Nicolas Serandour said: "Today's results further enhance the tremendous opportunity for [Advanced Oncotherapy] to competitively differentiate its LIGHT system. LIGHT has been designed to tackle most of the costs associated with the set-up of a proton therapy centre whilst providing greater patient access. Due to the high efficiency of LIGHT at all energies, patient treatment times are not expected to depend on how deep their cancer is in their body. Having an efficient source of protons available for treatment is becoming more critical as patient daily treatment doses are following a rising trend, placing additional demand on the machine to avoid longer treatment times.
"We have important milestones ahead of us, including our first site in Harley Street which we expect to be soon ready for fit-out, and we reiterate our commitment to treat our first patients towards the end of 2020."
Shares in Advanced Oncotherapy were down 1.1% at 44.00 pence on Monday afternoon.