Tumour irradiation in mice with a laser-accelerated proton beam

• DOI: 10.1038/s41567-022-01520-3
• Publication Date: 2022-03-15T16:11:08Z
• Authors: Florian Kroll; Florian-Emanuel B...; Constantin Bernert; Stefan Bock; Elisabeth Bodenstein; Kerstin Brüchner; Thomas E. Cowan; Lennart Gaus; René Gebhardt; Uwe Helbig; Leonhard Karsch; Thomas Kluge; Stephan Kraft; Mechthild Krause; Elisabeth Lessmann; Umar Masood; Sebastian Meister; Josefine Metzkes-Ng; Alexej Nossula; Jörg Pawelke; Jens Pietzsch; Thomas Püschel; Marvin Reimold; Martin Rehwald; Christian Richter; Hans-Peter Schlen...; Ulrich Schramm; Marvin E. P. Umlandt; Tim Ziegler; Karl Zeil; Elke Beyreuther
• Keywords: Nanosecond; Dose rate

Abstract Recent oncological studies identified beneficial properties of radiation applied at ultrahigh dose rates, several orders magnitude higher than the clinical standard order Gy min –1 . Sources capable providing these rates are under investigation. Here we show that a stable, compact laser-driven proton source with energies greater 60 MeV enables radiobiological in vivo studies. We performed pilot irradiation study on human tumours mouse model, showing concerted preparation mice and laser accelerator, dose-controlled, tumour-conform using as well reference source, evaluation irradiated unirradiated for radiation-induced tumour growth delay. The prescribed homogeneous 4 was precisely delivered source. results demonstrate complete research platform diverse user-specific small animal models, able to deliver tunable single-shot doses up around 20 millimetre-scale volumes nanosecond timescales, equivalent 10 9 s , spatially homogenized tailored sample. provides unique infrastructure translational protons rates.