Pluridirectional High-energy Agile Scanning Electron Radiotherapy (PHASER): a novel design for radiation treatment of cancer

Maxim, Peter, and Billy Loo . “Pluridirectional High-Energy Agile Scanning Electron Radiotherapy (PHASER): a Novel Design for Radiation Treatment of Cancer.” Stanford.edu, Stanford University, 28 Oct. 2018, biox.stanford.edu/research/seed-grants/pluridirectional-high-energy-agile-scanning-electron-radiotherapy-phaser-novel

After months of research and a lengthy fund obtaining process, researchers at Stanford university, in collaboration with multiple federal agencies, have been going to work on a project named PHASER, revolutionary revision of cancer radiation therapy as we know it. The aim of the project is to change modern radiation therapy which “takes typically about 15 to 90 minutes” to simple  a second-long procedure. They aim to accomplish this while also drastically altering the physical and economical nature of the devices which produce this radiation in order to make them more effective and readily available across the globe. The main issue with the current nature of radiation therapy is that during the lengthy minutes in which the dose of radiation is administered, tissues and organs within the person’s body move, creating a higher risk of destroying healthy cells and it some cases, even turning them cancerous. This would be a significant problem to overcome if we were able to reduce the time of an individual radiation therapy procedure as there would be much less potential for the affected cells to move out of the target range of the highly energized radiation. In addition to significantly reducing the risk of side effects, early trials with the new way of administering the radiation on tumors in mice have revealed that the “extremely rapid radiation delivery may have a more effective biological impact on tumors than the prolonged dosage”. However, it is not only how the radiation is administered that is under question but also how the radiation is produced with in the devices. Currently, x-rays are produced by forcing electrons through an electromagnetic field,causing them to release energy in a beam of x-rays. A new type of procedure however, which involves the acceleration of protons with large magnets, has proven to yield “even more effective results than traditionally produced radiation in regards to treating malignant tissue structures”. Lastly, the article discusses some important statistics regarding the impact of cancer not only of the US population, but the world's population as a whole. After showing that “Of the 1.5 million Americans who are diagnosed with cancer each year ⅔ could benefit from radiation therapy”, the authors conclude with a pretty compelling case as to why their project should receive further funding.

Overall, the nature of the PHASER project is highly promising. If the scientist at Stanford University are able to harness the power of accelerating electrons into a second long beam of radiation, this could have potential very good consequences not only for clinical results in the United States, but also in making radiation therapy more readily available across the globe. A key component of the project was to reduce the size of the machines with which radiation therapy is administered and make them more compatible with existing infrastructure in hospitals around the world. This could allow for hospitals in third world countries or countries which don’t see a lot of usage of radiation therapy to gain access to this potentially very life-saving device.

While many of the goals set by the Phaser program look very promising, one cannot forget that the project itself is still in it’s experimental phase. As of now, they are working with “computer simulation models” to test the effects of generating radiation from protons instead of electrons, meaning they are years away before clinical trials  can even begin. This means that it could take almost another decade for this project to have any real impact in saving people’s lives. Another major hurdle that the team faces is that the radiation they wish to create in their machines often relies on very large magnets moving around the patients, similar to an MRI. This stands in direct conflict with their goal of creating a device that is economically efficient but also convenient to use at hospitals around the world in terms of its size as this clearly presents a large engineering challenge that to be overcome if the project wants to meet the goals it set out to accomplish. Despite the initial shortcomings and the clearly long and winded road that the project has ahead of itself, we should not forget that this team of researchers at Stanford University enjoys the full support of the national Accelerator laboratory as well as significant amounts of federal funding. This, in contrast, paints a more optimistic future of the project’s  potential outcomes. The fact that the project goals appear to be very attainable within the reasonable future, means the only suggested improvement I can offer to the scientists at Stanford is to obtain as much federal funding as possible as this should have greatly help them experiment and accomplish their goals as soon as possible, potentially saving millions of lives across the United States and across the world.