Published on the 27th January 2016 by ANSTO Staff
Prof HirohikoTsujii, former Medical Director, National Institute of Radiological Services (NIRS) in Japan, Dr Malte Ellerbrock, Deputy Director Medical Physics, Heidelberg Cancer Centre, Germany and Dr Michael Krämer, of GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, also in Germany, will speak in the AINSE Theatre on 1 February commencing at 1:00pm until approximately 2:30pm.
Prof Tsujii will report on the current status of carbon-ion radiotherapy in Japan and in particular on the developments at National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS), a world-leading radiological research institute. Established in 1957 as the Japan’s only institute of radiology, it is now a fundamental and clinical radiation research centre, and a hospital for specialised radiotherapy.
Dr Ellerbrock will share information about the current status of regarding clinical operations, treatment techniques and efficiency of patient treatment at Heidelberg Ion Beam Therapy (HIT) Centre, which has provided therapy with scanned proton and carbon ion beams to 3200 patients since 2009. HIT has initiated almost 20 clinical trials.
Dr Krämer will report on the use of a successful new treatment using swift, light helium and oxygen ions. There is increasing interest in these modalities. Krämer’s group has performed numerous experiments and calculations to characterize the additional ion modalities on the macroscopic scale in terms of physics as well as radiobiology. Helium ions have potential application in the treatment of paediatric tumours. Oxygen is a promising candidate for treatments which require a very high linear energy transfer, for example hypoxic environments.