Biltema Foundation donates SEK 260 million to research on revolutionary method for cancer treatment

Biltema Foundation donates SEK 260 million to research on revolutionary method for cancer treatment

FLASH radiotherapy is a new form of radiation treatment developed by researchers at the University Hospital in Lausanne. The method has proven to be very effective in the treatment of cancer, while also sparing the adjacent healthy tissues to a remarkable degree. Biltema Foundation has now donated SEK 260 million to the project to further develop this revolutionary method for cancer treatment.
Published 2021.02.24

When patients undergo cancer treatment today, up to 40% of the cancers prove resistant to current standard care. The limitations are often due to the inaccessibility of the tumors, and in the event of treatment, the surrounding tissue would have been excessively damaged1.

Researchers at Lausanne University Hospital have developed a new type of radiotherapy called FLASH. The intensity of the radiation enables the same radiotherapeutic effect on the tumor, but administrated for milliseconds instead of minutes. With this method, the radiation is directed at the tumor with much higher precision, and the surrounding tissue is affected to a considerably lesser extent.

The phenomenon that FLASH radiotherapy is based on was discovered in 2014, and already in 2018, the first patient was treated successfully with this method. With funding from, among others, the donation from Biltema Foundation, the goal is now to further develop this form of treatment and continue to cure cancer patients.

Read more about FLASH radiotherapy here.

  1. lausanneuniversityhospital.com, Tackling cancer treatment resistance with FLASH, hämtad 2021–02–23 från https://www.lausanneuniversityhospital.com/tackling-cancer-treatment-resistance-with-flash.