Presentation highlights LIGHT system superiority

RNS Number : 3560Q

Advanced Oncotherapy PLC

27 October 2021

 

27 October 2021

Prior to publication, the information contained within this announcement was deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the UK Market Abuse Regulation. With the publication of this announcement, this information is now considered to be in the public domain.

ADVANCED ONCOTHERAPY PLC

("Advanced Oncotherapy" or the "Company")

ASTRO presentation highlights potential superiority of the LIGHT proton therapy system for the delivery of FLASH radiotherapy

Advanced Oncotherapy (AIM:AVO), the developer of LIGHT, the next-generation proton therapy system for cancer treatment, is pleased to announce that yesterday, Dr Anna-Maria Kolano, Medical Physicist at Advanced Oncotherapy, made an oral presentation at the prestigious American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) 2021 Annual Meeting held in Chicago, USA. Her presentation titled "FLASH radiotherapy planning with dose rate optimization" provided an overview of results from an important clinical modelling study comparing treatment plans for the delivery of proton therapy using FLASH protocols with the LIGHT system versus legacy proton therapy systems, suggesting the potential for superior outcomes with the LIGHT system.

FLASH radiotherapy, in which ultra-high radiation doses, several orders of magnitude higher than that currently used in conventional clinical radiotherapy, are delivered in fractions of a second, offers the potential to treat cancer patients in a single visit, rather than up to 30 visits with conventional radiation therapy, and has the potential to revolutionise the future of cancer treatment¹. However, to date, most of the studies into FLASH radiotherapy have used electron beams that have low tissue penetration, which presents a limitation for translation into clinical practice. A promising alternate FLASH delivery method is via proton beam therapy, as the dose can be deposited deeper within the tissue.

For FLASH radiotherapy to be maximally effective, physicians and radiation therapists must deliver a uniform radiation dose across the whole tumour to ensure that even tumours with irregular shapes are comprehensively irradiated. In principle, proton therapy is ideally suited to this as a proton beam deposits radiation rapidly on the Bragg peak spot - the area which will receive the most radiation and stray radiation (that could damage healthy tissue outside the contours of the tumour) is minimised. However, in practice, legacy proton beam systems (cyclotrons) are not designed to ensure such a fast deposition of the radiation dose: they use slow-rotating absorbers of high-density materials to physically vary the depth of the Bragg peak spot in the body and, therefore, are poorly suited to deliver a conformal and uniform FLASH radiotherapy treatment. In contrast, the Company's LIGHT system's proton beam energy is controlled electronically and can move the Bragg peak up to 200 times per second, enabling it to more effectively target tumours of all shapes.

The conference presentation at ASTRO detailed two modelled proton therapy treatment plans prepared for a prostate tumour; one predicated on the use of a LIGHT system and another predicated on the use of a legacy cyclotron-based system. Importantly, the data from the modelling demonstrated that the LIGHT system's design results in a superior clinical treatment plan enabling, uniquely, both effective FLASH dose delivery and good conformality of that dose delivery to the tumour tissue. In contrast, the treatment plan based on the use of the legacy system could provide either good conformality of radiation delivery to the tumour tissue, but with sub-optimal FLASH dose across all the tumour that would be required for effective treatment, or uniform FLASH irradiation of the tumour but with poor conformality to the tumour resulting in irradiation of healthy tissue.

Dr Jonathan Farr, Chief Clinical Officer at Advanced Oncotherapy said:

"There is an urgent need to treat more cancer patients and reduce the toxicity burden associated with legacy radiation therapy systems. We believe FLASH is the future of radiation therapy as it not only promises to improve patient outcomes but also the patient experience.

"At Advanced Oncotherapy, we are developing our LIGHT proton therapy system to enable FLASH delivery anywhere in the human body. The modelled data presented at ASTRO further showcases the LIGHT system's advantages in comparison to legacy proton therapy systems in designing FLASH treatment plans, thus enabling tumour targeting and sparing the surrounding healthy tissues in a reduced number of patient visits. The ultra-fast energy changes provided by LIGHT enable us to retain high dose conformality to the cancer target while delivering low dose rates to the surrounding healthy tissues. We believe it is this highly differential effect between tumour killing and healthy tissue protection that makes the FLASH development so compelling in the context of our LIGHT proton therapy system."

Notes for editors

1 - Hughes JR, Parsons JL; Int. J. Mol. Sci 21(18): 6492 (2020)

Advanced Oncotherapy plc	www.avoplc.com
Dr Michael Sinclair, Executive Chairman	Tel: [phone]
Nicolas Serandour, CEO
Allenby Capital Limited (Nomad and Joint Broker)
Nick Athanas / Liz Kirchner (Corporate Finance) Amrit Nahal / Matt Butlin (Sales and Corporate Broking)	Tel: [phone]
SI Capital Ltd (Joint Broker)
Nick Emerson	Tel: [phone]
Jon Levinson	Tel: [phone]
FTI Consulting (Financial PR & IR)	[e-mail]
Simon Conway / Rob Winder	Tel: [phone]

About Advanced Oncotherapy Plc

Advanced Oncotherapy, a UK headquartered company with offices in London, Geneva, The Netherlands and in the USA, is a provider of particle therapy with protons that harnesses the best in modern technology. Advanced Oncotherapy's team "ADAM," based in Geneva, focuses on the development of a proprietary proton accelerator called, Linac Image Guided Hadron Technology (LIGHT). LIGHT's compact configuration delivers proton beams in a way that facilitates greater precision and electronic control.

Advanced Oncotherapy will offer healthcare providers affordable systems that will enable them to treat cancer with innovative technology as well as expected lower treatment-related side effects.

Advanced Oncotherapy continually monitors the market for any emerging improvements in delivering proton therapy and actively seeks working relationships with providers of these innovative technologies. Through these relationships, the Company will remain the prime provider of an innovative and cost-effective system for particle therapy with protons.

 

END

 

 

MSCPPGUUUUPGPPQ