A Sweden-based radiation software company will be utilizing code from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland and the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Italy to better plan out ion beam therapy, a cancer treatment that delivers radiation more precisely than conventional therapy.

RaySearch Laboratories, which also has an office in Garden City, New York, has signed an agreement with the two organizations to utilize the FLUKA Monte Carlo code, used to accurately simulate electromagnetic and nuclear interactions in matter.

“We are very pleased to collaborate with such prestigious institutions as CERN and INFN in our continued development in the field of ion beam therapy, which truly is state-of-the-art in radiation therapy,” said Johan Löf, RaySearch’s chief executive officer, in a statement. “We believe that this new agreement will help to position RayStation as the leading treatment planning system in carbon ion therapy.”
Carbon ion therapy is very much still in development, but experts believe it could represent a better form of cancer therapy than proton therapy. A facility is currently in development in Texas, which will be the first performing carbon ion therapy in the U.S., there are only eight such facilities in the world.

As part of the agreement, RaySearch can use data generated by the FLUKA code in its RayStation software, which is used in planning cancer treatments. The code will be used to better predict how effective the ion beams will be in targeting tumors, according to a news release from the company.

The code will be included in the fifth version of the RayStation software, which will be released in December and will be used clinically at two European ion therapy centers — MedAustron in Wiener Neustadt, Austria, and Centro Nazionale di Adroterapia Oncologica in Pavia, Italy.

Business Affairs Homepage