In Brief
Ion Tumor Therapy Refined
The already very effective tumour therapy using ion beam pulses is being further developed to optimise the irradiation dose for each individual patient. So far, radiation therapy takes into consideration in particular the consistency and position of the tumour. The GSI experts initially work on samples of tumour tissue prepared to remain alive over weeks. Since these samples largely correspond to the natural conditions within the patient, the scientists can observe effects during irradiation, which also occur in patient treatment. In particular, the scientists want to find out how the irradiated cells affect their neighbouring cells, that is, observe the so-called bystander effect. Until now, this is possible only to a very limited degree in the hitherto existing test procedures with artificial cell samples or in animal experiments.
