Empowered Patient Podcast Alpha DaRT Technology Advances Radiation Therapy for Targeting Solid Tumors with Robert Den Alpha Tau Medical
Robert Den, Chief Medical Officer at Alpha Tau Medical, is changing cancer treatment using their Alpha DaRT technology to deliver a potent form of alpha radiation directly into solid tumors with minimal side effects. There is potential for the Alpha DaRT to be combined with immunotherapy and chemotherapy to further invoke an immune response. This one-time alpha radiation treatment has shown the ability to treat all solid tumors, only limited by the ability to deliver the Alpha DaRT directly to the tumor.
Robert explains, "So alpha radiation is one of the three types of radiation that occur naturally, and it's been known as a very potent form of radiation for several decades now. The challenge with alpha radiation in the treatment of patients with localized disease and with solid tumors, meaning tumors not like leukemias or lymphomas but more like pancreas, lung, and prostate cancer, is that the alpha particles themselves aren't only able to travel a very short distance inside tissue or inside the cancer itself."
"Before Alpha Tau and the Alpha DaRT technology, there was no pragmatic way to use this super potent and very safe type of radiation because you could not put enough alpha particles inside a tumor to cover the tumor with the radiation dose. What Alpha DaRT technology does is rely on the movement of what's called alpha-emitting daughter atoms."
"So essentially, we take a biocompatible inert metal seed, which means that if you were to put this seed into the body, there would be no immune effect. Patients could have it inside them for the entirety of their life. Essentially, what we do is we cover this seed with a radiopharmaceutical called Radium-224. We just put Radium-224 on the outside of the seed. Then, we insert it either through a minimally invasive approach or using a different endoscopic approach inside the tumor directly. So now we have the seed covered with the radium inside the tumor, and this is basically where the magic happens."
#AlphaTauMedical #Cancer #TargetedRadiation #ClinicalResearch #RadiationOncology #Oncology #CancerTreatment #AlphaRadiation