Last updated November 29, 2019 at 9:06 am
The future of cancer treatment in Australia is being revolutionised as technology allows new possibilities – including the intersection of particle physics and gaming.
Why This Matters: Welcome to the future of medicine.
Medical Physicist Sean Geoghegan talks about the future of cancer treatment in Australia, where technology is improving patient results.
As technology improves, medical physics is changing with it to revolutionise how we treat cancer. This includes taking inspiration from gaming an the physics engines used to create them in order to better target cancers inside bodies. Some areas of the body are more difficult to treat than others, for example breast cancer treatment can be difficult as the tumour moves when the patient breathes. Instead, medical physicists are looking at ways to accurately target a moving tumour.
Mathematics is also delivering science fiction in reality. Quantitative imaging lets doctors scan patients using CT imaging, but then quantify the amount of iron in organs in their body. Too much iron can be dangerous, so without needing to put a needle in the patient and take a blood sample, doctors can accurately measure he iron throught the patients body.
The future is even more exciting – as the technology develops further, cancer treatments can be more tailored to patients and less routine. By using the tools available, medical staff will be able to treat patients more effectively, but also spend more time with patients and less developing the treatment itself.
