DoseOptics LLC announced today that the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the company a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). This award brings the total NIH support for DoseOptics to $3.7MM since its inception in 2015. This follows on the heels of DoseOptics’ C-DoseTM imaging system being recognized as “Editor’s Choice of the Most Innovative Technologies at AAPM 2018” by Imaging Technology News’ Dave Fornell and a “Product of the Year Finalist” by the New Hampshire Tech Alliance.

The NIH grant will support the continued development of the world’s first and only radiotherapy optical verification tool, C-DoseTM, to improve the safety of radiation treatments.

In the US this year, nearly 1,000,000 patients diagnosed with cancer will receive high dose radiation as part of their treatment. Trends in radiotherapy treatment are calling for higher doses with fewer treatments, requiring higher demand for accuracy and precision in the treatment delivery. However, radiation therapy today remains a “blind” procedure – clinicians cannot visually see the delivery of the high energy radiation – and therefore rely on indirect methods to verify the treatment was delivered in the right place with the correct dose. Published error rates indicate that roughly 150,000 errors will occur this year largely because the current tools to verify the accuracy of the treatment are difficult to use, time-consuming and often imprecise, and as a consequence, only used 20 percent of the time.

“When C-Dose gets to market, it will provide an unprecedented level of detailed information which can be used to assess the accuracy and quality of radiotherapy,” says DoseOptics’ CEO, William Ware. “Because it is basically a video camera, albeit a very accurate one, we can use optical imaging tools to automate treatment verification.”

C-Dose captures the dim glow emitted from tissue during high energy radiation treatments to provide video rate images of the radiotherapy as it is delivered to the patient. Powerful software tools for image processing provides automated analysis of the treatment, with little to no impact to the current clinical workflow.

Mr. Ware is quick to add, “The last thing anyone in the clinic wants is another device in the room that disrupts, even slightly, critical details to the patient’s treatment. Routine video analysis makes verification seamless, intuitive, and would only be intrusive when it detects anomalies directly impacting the safety of the patient.”

C-Dose is a product of DoseOptics, LLC is a company with a mission of improving the safety and accuracy of radiation therapy. The C-Dose system is now available to research customers. Systems have been successfully deployed at leading academic institutions across the United States.

For more information, visit www.doseoptics.com.

Disclaimer: Research reported in this press release is supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under the award number R44CA232879. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.