Advanced Oncotherapy has successfully tested and calibrated programme at ADAM in Geneva, and that made it possible to integrate the proton source and Radio Frequency Quadruple (RFQ).
The company this way showed that there is a predicted acceleration of the proton beam through this structure, the RFQ, and that the measurements matched those expected from computer simulations.
Advanced Oncotherapy’s Professor Steve Myers, Executive Chairman of ADAM said that the significance of designing and building an RFQ with notably higher frequency and, hence, shorter wavelength and smaller dimensions than current comparable linear accelerators.
The company issued a video on its website, in which Paul Collier, Head of Beams Department at CERN, spoke about the unique features of AVO’s LIGHT system’s RFQ, which has been designed and built by CERN:
“This high frequency RFQ is the most beautiful piece of equipment I have been involved in manufacturing. This is a very important piece of technology transfer from CERN to the outside world. We were challenged to design and build the world’s highest frequency and highest power RFQ.”
About LIGHT
LIGHT is an acronym for Advanced Oncotherapy’s Linac Image Guided Hadron Technology – a particle therapy systems that requires neither the massive infrastructure nor the extensive shielding that older and current forms of protons accelerators do. LIGHT uses innovative accelerators and hence does not require a cyclotron nor a synchrotron to accelerate the protons to the high energy levels needed.
Current limitations of traditional proton therapy systems
On Oncotherapy’s website, the company showed what are the current limitations of proton therapy systems. Whilst great advances have been made in radiation therapy, great challenges and unmet needs remain. The use of protons to treat cancer has been limited by two factors – the massive size of the machines needed to accelerate the protons to their killing speed and the cost of the bunkers to house the equipment over 3 stories tall. This explains why there are only 45 proton therapy centers worldwide as of December 2013.