“There’s an exciting new cancer treatment on the horizon called Flash radiotherapy that could shake up the field as we know it. Rather than delivering radiation over several minutes like current techniques, Flash supercharges traditional radiotherapy by blasting tumors with an extremely intense dose of radiation in under a second.

While it may not sound like a major leap, this approach offers one big advantage: killing cancerous cells while doing less damage to surrounding healthy tissue. This is believed to occur because healthy tissues can better withstand the rapid dose than cancer cells.

Early experiments on healthy lab mice are promising and have already proven that the rodents don’t develop the typical side effects, even after two rounds of radiation.

The work behind Flash radiotherapy is being bolstered by an unlikely source: CERN, the particle physics lab famous for the Large Hadron Collider. While the concept of Flash originated from radiobiologists over a decade ago, CERN is adapting its particle accelerators – originally designed for smashing atoms – to deliver radiation at ultra-high speeds for cancer treatment.”

From TechSpot.