Periodic Reporting for period 1 - xMEMSRAY (Minimal invasive x-ray source enabled by a novel vacuum packaging technique)
Reporting period: 2015-01-01 to 2015-12-31
Internal radiotherapy or brachytherapy has been used for over a century in oncology and is widely used in treatments of prostate, cervical, breast and skin cancer among others. Classical brachytherapy is performed by inserting pieces of radionuclides inside or next to a treatment region. The use of radioactive isotopes however, have several limitations in that they are potentially hazardous in handling and that they are fixed in terms of both radiation dose rate, and radiation penetration depth and geometry. To address the issues of conventional brachytherapy an emerging field known as electronic brachytherapy has recently evolved where the radionuclide radiation source is replaced by an electronic, remotely powered, x-ray source. In this project we have evaluated technical, clinical and market requirements of a miniaturized x-ray source which would be small enough to access difficult areas with gynecological tumours and brain tumours. Our test results suggest that a relevant dose can be delivered within a timeframe of 15-20 min with our technical solution. This data provides proof of principle of our technical solution to continue commercialization of the technology.