The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research shared on LinkedIn:
“Radiation therapy is a powerful cancer treatment, but it comes with punishing side effects and a grueling schedule.
This month, Penn Medicine Cancer is launching the first-ever clinical trial of FLASH radiation, a new modality that could change that reality while improving patient outcomes – developed with support from The Mark Foundation Center for Immunotherapy, Immune Signaling, and Radiation at the University of Pennsylvania, led by Costas Koumenis and Andy Minn.
The new modality delivers radiation more than 100 times faster than traditional therapies – and in preclinical models, it appears to promote faster tissue recovery with less damage to healthy tissue.
In the pilot trial, 10 patients with advanced head and neck cancer who could face serious side effects with traditional radiation therapy will receive the treatment.
In time, researchers and clinicians hope that the approach could preserve quality of life while making radiation therapy more convenient and affordable for patients.
Learn more about the multidisciplinary work, including on FLASH radiation, that The Mark Foundation has supported at Penn.
Read the full article by Kayla Yup in The Philadelphia Inquirer.”
You can also read: Flash Radiotherapy: The 0.1-Second Cancer Treatment That Could Revolutionize Oncology
