Research
When he introduced the idea to make the world’s first real-time tumor-tracking radiation therapy (RTRT) system in the late 1990s, Professor Hiroki Shirato was met with skepticism and criticism from many of his colleagues. I thought the outright rejection showed how original and creative the system was. His idea was eventually put into practice in 1998 for radiation therapy using X-rays. Twenty years later his vision has been fully embraced by the medical community and is an integral part of Hokkaido University’s real-time image gated proton therapy (RGPT) system, one of the most advanced radiation therapy systems in the world. The RGPT system, which fuses an upgraded RTRT system with discrete spot scanning technology from Hitachi, Ltd., was built in 2014 as part of the national Funding Program for World-Leading Innovative R & D on Science and Technology (FIRST). The real-time tumor-tracking system is designed to locate, with millimeter precision, tumors in organs that are constantly “moving” due to respiration, peristalsis and other bodily motions. The tumor is irradiated only when the tumor is in a certain position so as to reduce the dose delivered to healthy tissues. In the treatment room, a patient lies on the bed and is irradiated with the proton beams while fluoroscopy is used to live-track the location of moving tumor. The marriage of tumor-tracking system with the spot scanning technology used in proton therapy achieved the breakthrough in modern cancer therapy.
Key Publications
Research paper
- 2019-01-01
Real-time-image gated proton therapy (RGPT) system will be available in ;
・Kyoto Prefectural University Hospital, Japan
・The Johns Hopkins National Proton Therapy Center, USA
・National Cancer Center Singapore, Singapore
・Clínica Universidad de Navarra, Madrid, Spain
・Hong-Kong Sanatrium and Hospital, Hong-Kong
And others … - 2018-04-01 Shirato H, Le QT, Kobashi K, Prayongrat A, Takao S, Shimizu S, Giaccia A,Xing L, Umegaki K. Selection of external beam radiotherapy approaches for precise and accurate cancer treatment. J Radiat Res. 2018 Mar 1;59(suppl_1):i2-i10. doi: 10.1093/jrr/rrx092.