Many patients see flashes of light in front of their eyes during radiation therapy, even with closed eyes, and now these flashes have been caught on camera for the first time.
A new study reveals that enough light is being produced inside the eye to cause these visual sensations, known as Cherenkov emissions or Cherenkov radiation, the same effect that causes nuclear reactors to glow blue when they’re underwater. Light is generated when the radiation beam passes through the vitreous fluid or the clear gel of the eye, according to the new evidence.
Cherenkov emission had earlier been only one of many hypotheses. The team behind the new study used a special camera imaging system called CDose, catching the effect on camera. The patient studied did indeed report seeing light flashes during the experiment. Follow-up tests on pig eyes were able to confirm the composition of the light and identify it as Cherenkov radiation.
The research has been published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, aiming to enable future radiotherapy techniques to be improved: for example, detection of Cherenkov emission could be used as a sign that treatment has or has not hit its intended target. The scientists also saw a correlation between whether patients see light flashes and whether they subsequently experience any vision loss.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
