A research team from the National University of Singapore has created a new technology to improve the treatment of stomach cancer, which is one of the most common types of cancer in the world. It requires the patient to receive doses of radiation in some stages of treatment, by enhancing the accuracy of the radiation therapy doses that the patient receives, especially since accuracy in targeting the cancerous tumor while avoiding damage to the surrounding tissues is of great importance in recovery. Doctors say that the current methods of monitoring radiation doses by monitoring vital indicators in the stomach, such as the level of acidity or temperature, are not sufficient to assess the efficiency of radiation doses.
Researcher Liu Qia and Zhang from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Singapore jointly with a research team from Yong Lu Lin Medical College, Tsinghua University and Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology developed a capsule that a patient swallows to measure the size of the radiation dose, according to the Medical Express website, which specializes in medical research.
According to the study published in the scientific journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, this new technology increases the efficiency of the radiation dose control process five times over other methods currently in force. The new capsule is 18 millimeters long and seven millimeters wide, and contains optical fibers and light-sensitive chemical compounds, as well as tiny sensors and other small units for measuring the level of acidity. The idea of this capsule is based on the fact that light-sensitive compounds release flashes when exposed to radiation, and by measuring these flashes, it is possible to determine the size of the radiation dose that the patient gets.
The capsule transmits data on the radiation dose by means of wireless signals received by a portable device with the medical team that conducts the treatment.
Okaz (Singapore) @OKAZ_online