Flash radiation therapy can help treat cancer without harmful effects, study finds

Flash radiation therapy, also called Flash-RT, can eliminate the debilitating side effects associated with traditional radiation therapy by delivering the same dose in tenths of seconds, and can remove tumors, according to a study published in Clinical Cancer Research. 

Researchers used Flash-RT to remove brain tumors in mice and found it to be just as effective as the traditional method. Mice were monitored for one month after Flash-RT exposure, according to the study. 

Flash-RT's ability to eliminate the toxicities of conventional radiation treatments has been previously studied, but this research also concluded that the treatment is successfully able to remove tumors, a previous question about the efficacy of Flash-RT. 

The price of a Flash irradiation machine "will be no more and possibly less than typical linear accelerators used in current clinical practice that generally run from $5 million to $9 million," Charles Limoli, PhD, a researcher and professor of radiation oncology at University of California Irvine, told Becker's. 

"It's not unreasonable to expect that in 10 years, this may become a widespread option for radiotherapy patients worldwide," Dr. Limoli told the news site at UC Irvine.

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