Scientists working at CERN, the home of the Large Hadron Collider, are developing new types of radiotherapy that can destroy tumours while damaging less of the surrounding tissue, helping to reduce side effects.
They have begun a five year research project to test different beams of ions – electrically charged atoms – for their ability to kill cancer cells.
Engineers are carrying out a £14 million upgrade on one of the particle accelerators linked to the LHC so that it can carry out medical research.
Physicists behind the project hope it will allow them to produce more effective treatments that can be afforded by the NHS.
Dr Stephen Myers, director of accelerator technology at CERN, said they were already working with a British company to build smaller versions of the 250 foot long ring needed to produce the particles so that it can be installed in hospitals.
He said: “We are hoping to develop new types of cancer therapy by testing all the different types of ions – like oxygen or carbon – to see which is the best.
“Current radiotherapies caused collateral damage to the surrounding tissue and that makes it difficult to treat some types of cancer, like eye melanomas or those that are hard to reach.
“Low energy ion beams can cause less damage as the destruction of the cells is dependent on the energy of the beam and it can be focused very precisely onto a tumour.
“This can allow patients to recover faster and surgeons can destroy more of the tumour, so survival rates are much better.
“We would like to see if we can bring everything down to a regular sized from and put one in every teaching hospital in Europe.”
A new type of radiotherapy which uses beams of particles known as protons is already starting to be used and has been found to produce better results.
The protons can be focused with greater accuracy than current radiotherapy methods, meaning that doctors can target more of the cancer without damaging the surrounding tissue.
However, proton beam therapy, as it is known, is available in just 32 hospitals around the world and just one in the UK – the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, where it is used to treat eye tumours.
Two more proton beam therapy centres are planned in Britain – with one due to be built in Manchester and another in London.
However, it costs hospitals £120 million for a proton beam therapy machine and treating a patient can cost between £90,000 and £120,000 each.
Scientists at CERN are now working with London-based company Advanced Oncotherapy to develop smaller and cheaper proton beam devices so that they can be more widely available.
Dr Michael Sinclair, the firm’s chief executive, hopes to install at least 10 new machines within the next five years.
He said that it could mean 12,000 cancer patients could receive the new type of treatment.
He said: “Proton beam therapy offers a significant improvement for patients with cancer than conventional radiotherapy, but so far the big problem has always been the cost.
“The machine developed by CERN has significant clinical advantages and will cost a third of equivalent equipment that is currently available.
“This is a game-changer – bringing a more effective cancer treatment to the masses.”
Britain contributes around £100 million a year to CERN, with the bulk of that being used to pay for the Large Hadron Collider.
Earlier this year, scientists announced that they had discovered a new type of particle that is believed to be a Higgs boson – the elusive so called God Particle that is believed to give other subatomic particles mass.
Read more at The Telegraph
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