'Make in India': Indian scientists develop '3D robotic motion phantom' for lung cancer

Under PM Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, Indian scientists have developed a novel and cost-effective 3-D robotic motion phantom that can reproduce the human lung motions during breathing. This can help the medics in easily treating cancer patients as it will ensure that the focused radiation is targeted correctly in the upper abdomen or thoracic region, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) said on Monday in a release obtained by PTI. The newly invented has been placed inside a CT scanner at a hospital where cancer patient is being treated. Researchers have called it a game-changer in the treatment of lung cancer that poses challenges such as irradiation during the therapy. 

Sometimes, the non-cancerous regions are targeted among the cancer patients undergoing therapy due to the breathing motions. The new 3D robotic motion phantom can help focus these by simulating the lung movement. As a result, the therapy may prove to be more effective with minimum exposure to radiation. The high-quality images of advanced 4D radiation therapy treatments can be obtained with a minimum dosage of radiation exposure. Ashish Dutta, Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, along with Professor K. J. Maria Das, Professor from Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Lucknow, developed the programmable phantom device using funds under the ‘Make in India’ initiative supported by Government of India’s Advanced Manufacturing Technologies programme of the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

In the medical domain, most things right from the scalpel to more complex equipment are extremely important, and in India, we don't make anything and pay 10-20 times more than the actual price. Most of such things can be made in India. We have the technology and we can make these things and it will be much cheaper. This device that we have made costs from $600 to $1300, lead researcher Ashish Dutta was quoted saying by Sputnik news agency. 

According to scientists, breathing motion has been a longtime hurdle for delivering focused radiation doses to cancer tumour patients. Often the motion exposes a larger area than the tumour impacting the patient’s surrounding tissues. “Before this is done on a human, its effectiveness needs to be checked on a robotic phantom,” the Department of Science and Technology (DST) stated, according to PTI. Researchers have been able to develop state-of-the-art motion management techniques like gating and tracking, which is incremental towards India’s technological developments towards cancer radiation therapy. But the quality assurance (QA) tools were not developed yet. 

“For quantitative determination of the absorbed dose in an organ in the patient for a specific type of treatment procedure accuracy of respiratory motion management techniques, additional respiratory motion phantoms are required,” reported PTI, citing the DST. 

Device with a 'dynamic platform'

With the new scientific invention, the motion phantom will allow the doctors to check the effectiveness of the targeted radiation only on the tumour region before it is delivered to a human subject. The phantom comes with a dynamic platform wherein any dosimetric or imaging quality assurance devices can be placed on it, and the device will imitate the 3D tumour motion with the help of three independent stepper-motor systems. A gating window is provided to focus the radiation from the machine just on the cancerous cells, meanwhile, the detectors ensure that the area targeted by the radiation is accurate and is “localised on the tumour.” This would be India’s first of a kind invention which is more affordable than other imported products on the market. It is currently under final testing in SGPGIMS, Lucknow.