Nouvelles

The Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center (HIT), belonging to the Heidelberg University Hospital (Germany), is equipped with a particle accelerator –Synchrotron- capable of reaching 73% the speed of light and destined to treat patients suffering from malignant, and often incurable, tumours.

The centre, which began operations last winter, is one of the first installations of this type in Europe and will attend to about 1,300 patients a year.

The treatment consists of the radiation of minute particles, heavy ions such as the carbon nuclei of protons and neutrons, or hydrogen nuclei. These are substantially different from X- or gamma rays in that radiation with heavy ions is more effective on deep tissues, achieving better results on tumours located in deep cavities.

These high technology devices, often suffer a marked reactive character and are also very sensitive to fluctuations in the power supply, will be protected by a Salicru series EMI stabiliser to guarantee a suitable power supply.