Rotating PET and linear accelerator system for PET-guided radiation therapy

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant Ablative radiotherapy is a very effective way to non invasively destroy a tumor Tumors in the body however move with respiration and require precise targeting for this high dose treatment There are a variety of technologies that implement tumor tracking to achieve ablative radiotherapy in the body however these are limited to treat just a few lesions in a patient due to the complexity and invasiveness of the necessary motion management techniques Therefore patients that present with later stage disease with more than a few metastatic sites e g lesions are not treatable with ablative radiotherapy RefleXion Medical is developing the first universal method for direct real time targeting of tumors based on biological guidance Utilizing positron emission tomography PET emissions from the patient this new technique allows for continuous and automatic dose conformation to multiple lesions enabling dose escalation to the target s and toxicity reduction to sensitive tissues The concept has been proven with phantom experiments and monte carlo software simulations This proposal has two specific aims to mitigate the key risks in the development of the first clinical prototype hardware system Aim will evaluate the effects that the radiation source or linear accelerator linac system may have on the PET system on a bench top and vice versa Aim will demonstrate simultaneous operation of the linac and PET systems on a closed ring gantry Success of these aims will enable the full clinical prototype to be completed and subsequent commercialization of the first biologically guided radiotherapy system PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE After cancer has metastasized radiosurgery which is a highly effective non invasive method of ablating a tumor is usually no longer an option for the patient due to the complexity of treating many lesions without an easy way to track them during treatment In this project RefleXion Medical aims to develop the first radiotherapy system that uses positron emission tomography PET to non invasively track a tumorandapos s position Biologically guided radiotherapy will enable automatic targeting and tracking of tumors throughout the body enabling radiosurgery treatment for late stage cancer patients