Our research into Flash radiotherapy could mean less time in hospital and fewer side effects. It could also help us to treat more people with cancer.

How you’ve helped with radiotherapy research

Supporters of The Christie charity like you have already done so much for proton beam therapy research. The proton research room at The Christie was built thanks to generous donations.

Our supporters helped to lay the foundations of this room. They helped to equip it with a proton magnet, a robotic arm and more. And for that, we can’t thank you all enough.

Thanks to our amazing Team Christie, we’re now ready to take the next exciting step in proton research – Flash therapy.

Flash radiotherapy research

Flash is a type of faster radiotherapy. With Flash, we’ll be able to deliver a very high dose of radiation within a tenth of a second, whereas we would normally need several minutes to deliver it.

With Flash therapy, treatment for some patients could take 1 week rather than 4 to 6 weeks.

But before we can start offering Flash therapy to our patients, we first need to research its capabilities. We need to understand exactly what happens – and when – after we’ve irradiated tumours and normal tissue.

If you want to support Flash radiotherapy research at The Christie, please give using the donation form below. We’re truly grateful for anything you can afford to give.

To understand how Flash therapy affects the body’s cells, we need an INCUCYTE. This helps scientists track what happens to the cells treated with Flash therapy over the following weeks and months.

If the INCUCYTE shows that Flash therapy causes less damage to healthy tissue compared to traditional radiotherapy, this means our patients will feel better.

It means our radiotherapy patients will have fewer side effects. This means less time in bed feeling sick and tired and more time with the people they love, doing the things they love.

As well as an INCUCYTE, we also need 16 lanthanum bromide detectors. This ingenious technology will help us to understand exactly how the protons deposit their dose. And this understanding will help us make treatment even more accurate.

Your donation today could help us afford this amazing technology.

And as Flash therapy can be delivered faster than non-Flash proton beam therapy, we’ll be able to treat more patients each month. That means more mums, dads, brothers and sisters could benefit from this cutting-edge cancer treatment.

Of course, if we reduce treatment times, we’ll also reduce waiting times. That means people all across the North West will spend less time anxiously awaiting their treatment.

Instead, they’ll have more time to focus on living their lives.

How you could help with radiotherapy research again

The Christie is an international leader in cancer research. This is largely due to the overwhelming generosity of our local supporters.

Our patients are at the very heart of our trials and studies. Our ultimate aim – no matter the research project – is to improve their outcomes.

At any one time, there are hundreds of clinical trials of new drugs being carried out at The Christie. For people who have exhausted their other treatment options, these trials represent hope of recovery from cancer.

We know our supporters have already done so much to help fund lifesaving proton research. If you help support us today, we could take the next crucial steps to help to provide the best possible cancer care for our patients.

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