Multidisciplinary Approaches to The FLASH Radiotherapy

Book excerpt: Radiotherapy (RT) is a cornerstone of cancer treatment, being routinely used for approximately half of cancer patients in high-income countries. Despite the extensive use of RT for over 60 years, its toxicity on normal tissues often limits the treatment of radioresistant tumors and is responsible for significant decrease in patient’s quality of life. However, it was recently established that ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) irradiation induces significantly less normal tissues toxicities, while keeping similar antitumor effect compared to conventional dose rate irradiation. This so called “FLASH Effect" was demonstrated in vivo on different animal models and different organs by delivering the total amount of radiation dose in a very short time ( usually <200 ms), with average dose rates above 40 Gy/s and with different particles including electrons, protons and photons.