Treating Cancer with Beams of Anti-Matter

Zeinfeld writes "According to this Economist article scientists at CERN are using beams of antimatter to destroy cancer cells. The basic idea is that you make some anti-protons, whizz them round in a accelerator to get them moving at a decent rate then fire them at living tissue. They burrow down to the desired depth, find a friendly proton and do a spot of mutual anihilation, releasing sufficient energy in the process to kill a cell or two. The trick is that matter/anti-matter anihilation is a bit like nuclear fission, it does not work if the particles are moving too fast. The anti-proton has to be moving slowly enough to get pulled into the orbit of some atomic nucleus and actually collide. This allows the treatment to be fine tuned so it only affects the tissues at a very specific depth - unlike traditional therapies which zap everything in the line of fire."

Comments

in line of fire - OR NOT!

[pbox]

This allows the treatment to be fine tuned so it only affects the tissues at a very specific depth - unlike traditional therapies which zap everything in the line of fire.

Well that is not true as stated.

Even regular X-Ray therapy those pesky alpha particles receive quite a spin, so they go straight to the set depth and then disperse, thus forming a focal point, without destroying any tissue in-between.

Think of it as playing pool, you can hit the ball so it goes straight with quite a spin on it, and as the ball slows down, the spin catches on, and makes to ball change direction.