Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Publication Date

7-1-2024

Journal

Seminars in Radiation Oncology

DOI

10.1016/j.semradonc.2024.04.008

PMID

38880544

PMCID

PMC12313220

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

7-31-2025

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Author MSS

Abstract

The "FLASH effect" is an increased therapeutic index, that is, reduced normal tissue toxicity for a given degree of anti-cancer efficacy, produced by ultra-rapid irradiation delivered on time scales orders of magnitude shorter than currently conventional in the clinic for the same doses. This phenomenon has been observed in numerous preclinical in vivo tumor and normal tissue models. While the underlying biological mechanism(s) remain to be elucidated, a path to clinical implementation of FLASH can be paved by addressing several critical translational questions. Technological questions pertinent to each beam type (eg, electron, proton, photon) also dictate the logical progression of experimentation required to move forward in safe and decisive clinical trials. Here we review the available preclinical data pertaining to these questions and how they may inform strategies for FLASH cancer therapy clinical trials.

Keywords

Humans, Neoplasms, Translational Research, Biomedical, Animals, Radiation Oncology, Clinical Trials as Topic

Published Open-Access

yes

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