Advanced Oncotherapy announced that it has made further progress in the development of its Linac Image Guided Hadron Technology, or LIGHT. The proton source is now integrated with the Radio Frequency Quadruple after a successful testing program in Geneva, Switzerland.

LIGHT can accelerate protons to the same energy level as legacy machines, but in a system that's a quarter of the size and up to a fifth of the cost. It can also deliver proton beams with great precision than older technologies.

The testing program demonstrated that there is predicted acceleration of the proton beam through the RFQ and that the measurements are the same as those from computer simulations.
Advanced Oncotherapy's Professor Steve Myers believes that it's important to design and build an RFQ with higher frequency and short we wavelength as well as smaller dimensions than other linear accelerators.

Paul Collier, head of the beams department at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said in a video that the high frequency RFQ is "the most beautiful piece of equipment" that he has been involved in manufacturing.

"This is a very important piece of technology transfer from CERN to the outside world," he added. "We were challenged to design and build the world's highest frequency and highest power RFQ."

In July 2015, Advanced Oncotherapy predicted that the first patient will be treated with LIGHT in 2017. The company expects to compete in the compact proton therapy segment and has signed a purchase agreement with Sinophi Healthcare Limited in East China.

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