Developing betatron based medical complexes to reduce the chance of cancer recurrence

Tomsk Polytechnic University, JSC Academician M.F. Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems and the Polyus Research and Development Center will create the betatron based medical complexes, reducing the chance of cancer recurrence.

Betatrons are particle accelerators that generate secondary x-rays. They were designed and developed by TPU. Despite the great demand for them in the world, they are produced only by the university. Their main advantages are mobility and compact size.

JSC Academician M.F. Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems and TPU have prepared a business plan for development of the betatron based intraoperative therapeutic complexes. The total funding is about 160-180 million roubles."

Dmitry Sednev, Director, TPU School of Non-Destructive Testing

At the first stage, it is necessary to develop three pre-production complexes and put them for clinical trials, which is necessary for production.

During an operation to remove a cancerous tumor, a high dose of ionizing radiation generated by the betatron is directed to either a tumor or its bed, which causes the death of remaining cancer cells.

This minimizes the chance of relapse while healthy tissues usually do not suffer from this therapy (which is a problem with traditional methods of radiation therapy).

A prototype of a medical betatron is already used at the Cancer Research Institute Tomsk National Research Medical Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Tomsk NRMC).

It is applied in Intra Operative Radiotherapy (IORT) for the combined treatment of malignant neoplasms both within and without remote radiation therapy.

Throughout this period, over 3,500 patients with malignant neoplasms of the head and neck, lungs, bones and soft tissues, breast, uterine body, and other localizations have received IORT treatment.

Also, this method can be used to treat the skin malignant neoplasms, which have become the second-ranked among cancerous localizations."

Evgeny Choynzonov, Cancer Research Institute (Tomsk NRMC)

However, the complex has not passed the certification procedure, which is the last obstacle to sell it for medical use.

This issue will be solved due to the cooperation with JSC Academician M.F. Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems. In addition, the partner's industrial designers will make it more compact

We are going to obtain a certificate for medical use and clinical trials. It is a long-time process and will take at least a year. However, we believe that successful 30-year experience in using the compact betatron for radiation therapy at Cancer Research Institute will boost it up."

Dmitry Sednev, Director, Tomsk Polytechnic University School of Non-Destructive Testing

These complexes will be approximately half the price than analogs based on a linear accelerator. It is due to the small size of the betatron.