February 21, 2023 — Lumitron Technologies, Inc., a company pioneering the development of a unique x-ray system, HyperVIEW EBCS, today announced its underlying accelerator technology has successfully generated electron beams that, for the first time, enable electron FLASH radiotherapy for a variety of next generation cancer treatments.
“Our accelerator has produced a train of 100 consecutive, high-charge and perfectly timed micro-bunches of electrons at 99.982% of the speed of light or an energy equivalent of 25 MeV, in ten billionths of a second. This ultrashort duration and high energy has the potential to dramatically reduce the side effects of conventional radiotherapy,” said Lumitron CTO and co-founder, Dr. Chris Barty.
According to Dr. Charles Limoli, professor radiation oncology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) School of Medicine and a FLASH radiotherapy expert, “Dr. Barty has advanced electron beam technology to the stage that it can provide clinically relevant doses of Very High Energy Electrons (VHEE) exceeding the requirements of electron FLASH radiotherapy – in an instrument that can fit inside a standard clinical bunker. This remarkable achievement places Lumitron’s technology years ahead of other groups developing high-energy electron irradiators that are more costly and at least five times larger.”
The accelerator that produced these electron beams is part of Lumitron Technologies’ compact HyperVIEW EBCS (Extremely Bright Compton Source) x-ray technology. HyperVIEW is the most significant change in clinical and industrial x-ray imaging in over 125 years and will enable revolutionary new capabilities for medical imaging, therapy, materials detection, and other applications across multiple industries. Comparable in size to an MRI or CT instrument, HyperVIEW EBCS is designed to collide a beam of near-light-speed electrons with a laser beam to produce high-energy x-ray beams. These beams will enable medical imaging at resolutions 1,000 times higher and/or doses 100 times lower than conventional x-rays, with dramatically shorter imaging times than conventional MRI of soft tissues.
This will enable the first application of Phase Contrast Imaging outside of billion-dollar, large-scale synchrotron facilities and will allow practitioners to image down to a cellular level at the point of care, in a hospital or clinic. Advanced 3D manufacturing will benefit dramatically from Lumitron Technologies' ability to image dense objects such as medical implants and aircraft turbine components with unprecedented accuracy and speed.
Australian-based Lumitron Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Mr. Maurie Stang said, "The system will provide up to a thousand times improvement in image detail, far lower X-ray dose and the ability to treat simultaneously at the same cellular level, which is set to transform the landscape for both patients and practitioners. A range of immunotherapies and contrast agents enabled by the ultra-bright Lumitron laser-based x-ray is being developed here in Australia leveraging the world-class expertise Australia enjoys in life sciences. We aim to not have to remove a breast or prostate due to the unmatched capabilities of the Lumitron system.”
Dr. Barty, who was previously the CTO of the National Ignition Facility Directorate at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory which recently achieved nuclear fusion ignition for the first time further added, “The Lumitron laser-based x-ray technology leverages hundreds of millions of dollars of investment by the leading US research labs to bring compact, electron beam and x-ray systems into commercial reality. While initial deployment of the technology targets unmet needs in clinical and industrial imaging, Lumitron’s unique platform has applicability across an incredibly wide array of additional and impactful applications.”
With respect to HyperVIEW EBCS x-ray source development, Lumitron Technologies has been awarded multiple US Government research contracts in addition to having several active programs with major industry leaders in healthcare and non-destructive materials analysis. Further, the company has signed an agreement with one of the world's largest commercial imaging groups showing the potential for wide-scale adoption of this breakthrough technology.
For more information: https://www.lumitronxrays.com/
May 02, 2024 
