TGR Liguria - ASG Superconductors: a new approach to the future of cancer treatment

Towards live imaging in proton therapy

ASG Superconductors with HZDR combine magnetic resonance imaging with particle beams.

ASG Superconductors with Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) will build the world’s first prototype that tracks moving tumors with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in real time during proton therapy, combining a rotating open MRI device for the LINAC-MR system Alberta Health Services, with an actively scanned clinical-akin proton beam at OncoRay, the Dresden-based National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology. The rotating MRI device is produced by ASG Superconductors, using the MROpen Evo technology-based helium-free superconducting MgB2 magnet. Real-time MRI would make it possible to synchronize the proton beam to tumor motion during radiation dose delivery. So far, this has been impossible and therefore was a limiting factor for treating moving tumors with this promising cancer therapy.