Researchers get a preview of synchrotron-based medical opportunities

More than 130 scientists and clinicians got a glimpse of synchrotron-based medicine at a recent workshop held at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne.

According to Prof Rob Lewis, who holds the X-Ray and Synchrotron Physics chair at Monash University, the point of the medical imaging meeting was to show clinicians how the Australian National Synchrotron, currently under construction in Melbourne, might go from being a research tool to a clinical tool.

"There is no question that working on real patients is starting to happen in synchrotrons," Lewis said.

"We have to crystal ball-gaze where the world will be in 2007 when the synchrotron is up and running. The danger is that we will be behind everyone else again if we don't keep an eye on whether clinical facilities are required from day one."

An imaging beamline suitable for medical applications will definitely be included in the first package of beamlines to be installed at the synchrotron, decisions on whether the beamline will be set up for clinical use still have to be made.

"We've agreed that we won't preclude clinical applications, but it is important to make sure we can do animals well first," said Lewis. "But we probably will be forced to make it patient-oriented sooner rather than later."

A patient-friendly clinical unit would add to the expense of the facility, Lewis said, but needed to be kept in mind as the plans for beamlines and associated user facilities were developed.

Five international speakers presented details of their work at the conference, including Dr Luigi Rigon, from the University of Trieste, where the Elettra synchrotron will soon be put to use for in vivo mammography.

Another speaker, Prof Jean Albert Laissue, from the University of Bern, highlighted research on rats using microbeam radiotherapy on brain tumours in rats. Lewis said the research not only offered potential new radiotherapy methods, it stood to inform conventional radiotherapy techniques, perhaps even pointing out some of the shortcomings of current protocols.

Lewis said that the response from the workshop participants was very encouraging. He hopes to take clinicians and researchers overseas in the next couple of years to begin training and research programs at international facilities so that things are ready to go once the Australian facility is up and running.