China Economic Weekly-Economic Network News (Reporter Sun Tingyang) If workers want to do good things, they must first use their tools, and they must also have advantages for treating cancer.
Hitachi's particle line therapy system, which breaks the DNA of cancer cells, is a powerful tool for treating cancer. Cao Xueya, General Manager of Particle Line Therapy Solutions Department of Hitachi (China) Co., Ltd., introduced hitachi's particle line therapy system.
In January 2022, the Team of Particle Line Therapy Solutions of Hitachi (China) Co., Ltd. was interviewed by China Economic Weekly to introduce this cancer treatment tool. Using this system well will improve the quality of life of cancer patients, and the vision of zero cancer deaths is no longer far away.
Carbon ion lines break up the DNA of cancer cells
New cancer cases in the country remain high. According to the latest global cancer burden data released by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization, in 2020, there were 4.57 million new cancer cases in China, and the compound annual growth rate of the number of new cancer patients was slightly higher than the global average. It is expected that more than 5 million new cancer patients will be added in 2025 and 6.8 million in 2040. The stock of cancer patients in China is also huge, approaching more than 9 million people.
Treatments for cancer include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Radiation therapy mainly consists of X-rays or gamma rays. Various treatment methods are developing in the direction of reducing side effects and refining.
X-ray irradiation is obvious. Although this treatment avoids the damage of other organs by surgery, when X-rays enter the human body, the energy released is the highest near the skin, and then gradually decreases, and when it reaches the cancer tissue site, the release energy has dropped a lot compared with the previous period. As a result, the treatment effect is insufficient and there is also damage to the surface of the skin.
Proton wires or carbon ion wires can make up for this shortcoming. Replace X-rays with proton wire or carbon ion wire, after good control, inhibit energy release near the skin and before reaching the cancer tissue, once it reaches the cancer tissue, a large dose of energy is released instantaneously, and after passing through the cancer tissue, it immediately stops releasing energy, forming an energy release trajectory called "Bragg Peak".
The above is too academic, what should I do when I actually treat it?
The doctor regulates the energy of the proton line and the carbon ion line, controls the depth of the location where most of the energy is released, controls it in the area of cancer tissue, releases all the lethality in the area of cancer tissue, and there is little damage in the superficial and normal tissues on the surface of the body, and there is no damage behind the cancer tissue.
Wu Xin, the technical manager in the Particle Thread Therapy Solutions Department of Hitachi (China) Co., Ltd., introduced the principles of Hitachi's particle line therapy system. By accelerating protons or carbon ions to 70% of the speed of light, the proton or carbon ions are intensively irradiated and killed by cancer tissue cells, and the "Kinetic Body Tracking Irradiation Technology" can be used to treat refractory cancers that shift with breathing.
The composition of Hitachi proton line cancer treatment system
Simply put, Hitachi's system uses particle accelerators in middle school physics for cancer treatment. Applying physical principles to practical treatment is not easy.
According to public information, Hitachi's history of particle line therapy stems from a national project in Japan in the 1980s, the Heavy Ion Line Cancer Treatment Device Program. In the process of promoting industrial research, Hitachi accumulated accelerator technology and control technology, and began to enter the market.
Wu Xin used a video from the Mayo Clinic in the United States to compare the differences between X-rays, proton lines and carbon ion lines. Ordinary X-ray therapy interferes with the DNA in cancer cells and breaks the chain. Proton therapy can break a single strand of DNA in a cancer cell, and there is a possibility of re-repair, but pediatric cancer patients need higher safety, and proton therapy is more common. With carbon ion irradiation, the energy of a carbon ion can directly break a piece of DNA in cancer tissue cells, cutting off the DNA in cancer tissue cells. The ability of cancer tissue cells to replicate is killed and loses the ability to reproduce. For some radiation-resistant cancer tissue cells, carbon ion therapy has greater lethality.
Comparison of three types of radiation therapy (Image source: Mayo Clinic science video)
How do patients feel differently? Zhang Lifeng, deputy general manager of particle line therapy solutions department of Hitachi (China) Co., Ltd., answered this question. Compared to other radiation therapies, he said, particle thread therapy is painless, has fewer side effects, has less damage to normal tissue, and is close to surgical treatment. So that patients can continue to live normally while treating, ensuring the quality of life. Heavy ion line therapy can greatly reduce the average number of patient irradiation, taking the treatment of early peripheral lung cancer as an example, heavy ion line irradiation can be 4 times, proton line needs more than 20 times, X-ray needs more than 30 times.
Two sets of Hitachi particle radiotherapy system in Japan
Radiation therapy has become widespread in developed countries. About 70 percent of patients in the United States choose radiation therapy, which has largely replaced surgery and is less expensive than surgical treatment. Among them, the MD Anderson Cancer Center Proton Center, ranked No. 1 in the American Cancer Organization Specialty Hospital, uses Hitachi equipment; the Mayo Clinic, ranked first in the general hospital, all proton heavy ion facilities are provided by Hitachi.
There are 24 particle line operating facilities in Japan, of which 18 use Hitachi's particle line treatment system.
According to reports, as an equipment provider, Hitachi improves the accuracy of equipment while continuously realizing miniaturization and reducing equipment costs. According to employees of Hitachi (China) Co., Ltd., in the 1990s, the area was equivalent to a football field, but now it has been reduced to a baseball field, which is more than half of the size.
Japan has a population of 126 million, and with nearly 30 particle line facilities under construction. Chinese mouth is more than 10 times larger than Japan, corresponding to 300 particle line facilities. Given the economic development, the industry generally believes that there should be a market size of 100 particle line facilities. Cao Xueya, general manager of the particle line treatment solution department of Hitachi (China) Co., Ltd., believes that as a practitioner, the burden on her shoulders is not light.
Cao Xueya introduced that the proton thread therapy equipment market, the world's top three, can provide both protons and heavy ion equipment, the world's only Hitachi. In the field of heavy ions, Hitachi ranked first.
In May 2019, China Xuzhou Zhonggu Hospital Management (Xuzhou) Company signed a contract with Hitachi on the 29th to introduce hitachi particle line therapy system.
Zhang Lifeng, Deputy General Manager of Particle Line Therapy Solutions Department of Hitachi (China) Co., Ltd., introduced the collaboration in detail. The system is equipped with four treatment rooms: one proton thread treatment room with a 360-degree rotating frame and three heavy ion line fixed beam treatment rooms. The system is also equipped with motion tracking technology, which enables precise irradiation of organs that displace with breathing, and scanning irradiation technology that can irradiate particle lines according to the shape of cancer tissue. In addition, Hitachi's treatment planning software is included, which captures the shape of the cancer tissue based on the image information of the affected part and calculates the appropriate dose of radiation, tailoring the particle line treatment plan for each patient.
In December 2021, Midea Holdings' Wayu International Hospital signed a contract with Hitachi to introduce Hitachi's proton heavy ion integrated cancer treatment system.
The equipment is excellent, how can the doctor use this equipment well?
The equipment of osaka heavy ion line center is provided by Hitachi and they have experience. In the first year of its opening, Tan Cheng, the executive director of the institution, told the reporter of China Economic Weekly that although Hitachi provided high-level equipment, the Osaka Heavy Ion Line Center should make good use of these equipment. In the past year, they are not in a hurry to increase the number of patients treated, but more to improve the quality of treatment. In order to improve the accuracy of treatment, the Osaka Heavy Ion Line Center is still developing new technologies. For discharged patients, the Osaka Heavy Ion Line Center will follow up for 5 years to monitor the effect of treatment.
For general radiotherapy doctors and physicists, it is not difficult to get started with proton therapy facilities, heavy ion therapy is slightly more complicated, and after a year and a half of training, it can also be competent. "If we do difficult work, the doctor can put all his energy on treatment," Zhang Lifeng was full of confidence. He introduced that Hitachi has a high-end hospital user network, 33 hospitals have been settled, Hitachi's new customers will be introduced to join this network to help cultivate talents.
Toshiaki Higashihara, Executive Director and CEO of Hitachi Manufacturing, shared a piece of good news he received in his speech at the Hitachi Social Innovation Forum 2019 Tokyo. Hitachi's Particle Line Cancer Treatment System was installed at MD Anderson Cancer Center in the United States, and one of the patients treated at this center participated in the Boston Marathon three years after being discharged from the hospital and ran the whole course.
Cao Xueya said that in the field of cancer treatment, there is a vision of improving the quality of life of patients and zero cancer deaths, and we practitioners are the people who promote the early realization of this goal.
(The copyright belongs to China Economic Weekly Magazine, and no media, website or individual may reprint, excerpt, link, repost or otherwise use it without authorization.) )