Colorado State University (CSU) and the University of Colorado are hosting a symposium for oncologists, cancer researchers, and radiological scientists to discuss radiation as a cancer treatment. Taking place between July 31st and August 1st at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Denver, the Photon, Proton and Carbon Ion Radiotherapy Symposium will explore the late breakthroughs in the field.
“Radiation oncology is by nature multidisciplinary as it draws on physics, biology and medicine,” explained the head of the CSU Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, Jac Nickoloff. “This symposium is unique in its focus on all three radiation modalities that have proven effective in cancer treatment.”
Speakers from leading research and treatment centers, such as the University of Munich, the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Duke University Cancer Center and the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, will present the late stages of the basic, translational, and clinical research. One of the main purposes of the symposium is to bring awareness to U.S. community to a new course of radiological treatment.
Although in the United States radiation is one of the most recurrent courses of treatment for cancer patients, usually administrated as photon or proton radiotherapy, research on carbon ion radiation as treatment for severe cancers has gained more attention within the medical community. The Japanese National Institute of Radiological Sciences is a pioneer in the use of carbon ion radiotherapy to identify difficult tumors, such head, neck, bone and soft-tissue tumors as well as lung, prostate, rectal and pancreatic cancers.
The CSU College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has been increasingly interested in carbon ion radiotherapy and worked in collaboration with the Japanese institute to raise knowledge about this treatment for several years. Nickoloff expressed his will of exploring the use of this type of radiotherapy for cancer patients in the United States in order to provide them a third therapeutic option.
“Our partnership is hugely beneficial as the institute now has more than 20 years of clinical experience with this lifesaving treatment option,” he said. “Photon and proton radiotherapy are well-established in the U.S. and the world, but carbon ion radiotherapy is only available in Japan, Germany and Italy.”
The National Institute of Radiological Sciences of Japan, the CSU College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, the CSU Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, the CSU Flint Animal Cancer Center, University of Colorado Health, the CU Anschutz Medical Campus the CU Cancer Center and the CU Department of Radiation Oncology will be presenting their researches on the symposium. Registration as well as more information is available here.
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