Video Games Technology Kills Cancer Cells

Dr. Brain Butler, a radiation oncologist at The Methodist Hospital (Houston, TX, USA) turned to a group of Dallas, TX, USA-based video game programmers in their 20s to devise a system that takes targeted cancer therapy to another level.

With this technology, cancer therapy can now be performed like a video game, and the make-believe, "shoot-‘em-up” gaming style is not pretend at all. The enemy is cancer. The growth blueprints of cancer are the ‘supply lines.' Furthermore, because the program enables clinicians to pinpoint the location of the cancer with the precision of a sniper rifle, it spares surrounding healthy tissue and cells from injury.

Combining more than 20 years of anatomic data from Houston (TX, USA), radiologist Dr. L. Anne Hayman, and three-dimensional (3D) computer gaming software, the program helped Dr. Butler and coworkers to accurately assess a tumor's site in the body and where they can and cannot deliver radiation.

The computer program is a refinement of intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). IMRT, used for the first time at The Methodist Hospital in March of 1994, forever altered how cancer patients receive radiation worldwide. Rather than a single radiation beam that treats the total region around the tumor, IMRT uses a more accurate multi-beam technique that better hones in on cancer cells in the body.

The development of this radiation technology has principally involved the modification of the tools used against cancer, from the "shotgun” to the "sniper rifle.” "The other aspect is knowing where the lymphatic systems are, and understanding where nerves run in the body,” Dr. Butler said. "Also, as a field, radiation oncology has no specific training in CT anatomy. This helps us overcome that problem by having all the information about the human body already in the system.”

The computer gamers devised a method of not only mapping the entire human body using Dr. Hayman's anatomic data, but also a way to bring in an actual computed tomography (CT) scan of a cancer patient. Once these data are merged, a precise radiation treatment that takes into account the tumor size, location, growth pattern and stage of the disease can be given.

The advanced computer program works together with tomotherapy, a device that performs a CT scan of the patient and delivers the radiation. This results in the most accurate, effective delivery of radiation presently available.




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