Ricerc@Sapienza

The external beam radiotherapy research community is currently experiencing an exciting time: experimental evidence is growing, supporting the evidence of a considerable normal tissue sparing effect when treatments are delivered with dose rates much larger (100 times or more) with respect to the conventional ones. If confirmed, this so-called `FLASH effect' has the potential to re-shape the future of radiation treatments especially with charged particles, with a significant impact on many oncology patients.
The DEARS project addresses one of the main challenges posed by this potential revolution. The potential of FLASH delivery of electron beams can be evaluated only by means of dedicated MonteCarlo simulations carried out using software tools, currently missing, that are capable of handling the FLASH treatments planning. The development of the needed algorithms and software tools is mandatory to carry out a detailed study on the improvements with respect to standard radio therapy and enable clinical applications. In addition, to improve the experimental knowledge of the FLASH effect new beam monitoring and dosimetry techniques are needed to overcome the saturation problem present in the standard techniques.
Within the Scienze di Base e Applicate per l'Ingegneria department of "Sapienza" university, the knowhow and expertises needed to make a step forward in the implementation of software tools needed for the simulation and treatment optimization tasks are currently available. Same holds for the beam monitoring task: DEARS proponents have already built a prototype detector for FLASH beams monitoring purposes and will use the preliminary results to finalise the monitor geometry and maximise its performance. Such contribution can be seen as a fundamental step towards the FLASH enabling technology.
The DEARS deliverables will place on solid grounds the future steps made when aiming for the FLASH effect confirmation or disprove and its possible clinical implementation.